Emma Stone, in a recent interview with OUT Magazine, revealed that some of her male co-stars took pay cuts so that she was paid equally for her work.
Stone participated in a roundtable with tennis star Billie Jean King, whom she plays in the new movie “Battle of the Sexes,” and Andrea Riseborough for the magazine’s cover feature. The movie focuses on King’s tennis match with retired player Bobby Riggs, who claimed he could beat any woman at tennis.
King beat Riggs in 1973 and also got the U.S. Open to pay equal prize money to women and men by threatening to boycott the tournament.
“In my career so far, I’ve needed my male co-stars to take a pay cut so that I may have parity with them,” Stone said. “And that’s something they do for me because they feel it’s what’s right and what’s fair.”
Stone went on to say that the pay cuts increase what she can command for subsequent roles.
Fellow roundtable participant Riseborough said she had never had anyone take a pay cut for her, adding that she had many times asked for raises to achieve parity and been refused.
“I’ve been No. 1 in films before and been paid a lot less,” she admitted. “There’s this underlying feeling that you should be grateful.”
“At our best right now we’re making 80 cents to the dollar,” Stone said, referring to women across the board on average, not to her own pay specifically.
“White women,” King responded, HuffPost pointed out. “If you’re African American or Hispanic it goes down, and then Asian Americans make 90 cents to the dollar.”
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