Olivia Colman: I’d be paid more if I was Oliver, says actress – as she hits out at gender pay gap
Olivia Colman has criticised gender pay disparity, saying if she was a man, she would be earning “a f*** of a lot more than I am”.
The Oscar-winning actress, who starred as Queen Elizabeth II in The Crown, was also scathing about the long-held idea that male actors draw more people to cinemas.
Colman, 50, was asked on CNN’s Christiane Amanpour programme about women being taken more seriously in Hollywood.
She said: “Research suggests that they’ve [women have] always been big box office draws… don’t get me started on the pay disparity but male actors get paid more because they used to say they draw in the audiences and actually, that hasn’t been true for decades.
“But they still like to use that as a reason to not pay women as much as their male counterparts.”
Colman added: “I’m very aware that if I was Oliver Colman, I’d be earning a f*** of a lot more than I am… I know of one pay disparity, which is a 12,000% difference… do the maths.”
She was on the news show to talk about her new film Wicked Little Letters – about the true story of poisoned pen messages that hit the town of Littlehampton in West Sussex in the 1920s.
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Adam Sandler was the highest paid actor of 2023, earning $73m (£57m) thanks to his Netflix film Murder Mystery 2 and his stand-up comedy tour, according to the US business magazine Forbes’ annual list.
Margot Robbie was the second highest earner on $59m (£46m) after starring in and producing the blockbuster Barbie.
The only other woman in the top 10 was Friends star Jennifer Aniston, who placed sixth with $42m (£33m).
Tom Cruise was third on the list, earning $45m (£35m) after the latest in the Mission: Impossible series movie, while Barbie star Ryan Gosling and Oppenheimer actor Matt Damon both placed fourth with $43m (£34m).
Leonardo DiCaprio, Denzel Washington, Jason Statham and Ben Affleck made up the rest of the top 10.
Colman, who won an Academy Award for 2018’s The Favourite, has complained about pay disparity and other double standards in the industry before.
She told the Radio Times podcast last month that “some of the biggest-grossing films, Barbie, Bridesmaids, Thelma & Louise, are led by women”.
She said: “People say men get paid more because they get more bums on seats. That’s a lie! It can be proved in the box office. I don’t know why we’re still having to discuss it!”