Olivia Colman is an award-winning, well-known British actor with a career spanning over two decades and an estimated net worth of $12 million USD ($18.35 million AUD).
But what if her name were Oliver Colman? To use her words, she’d be earning “a f*ck of a lot more”.
Colman was speaking with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Monday, promoting her latest film Wicked Little Letters alongside director Thea Sharrock, when she made the strong statement to hundreds of thousands of American viewers.
Amanpour asked Sharrock and Colman if they thought women actors are now considered “big box office draws” following recent success of women-led films, including Barbie, Poor Things and their own film, Wicked Little Letters.
“Research suggests they have always been big box office draws… Don’t get me started on the pay disparity,” Colman responded.
“Male actors get paid more because they used to say they draw in the audiences, but 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. Particularly in our industry.”
“If I was ‘Oliver’ Colman, I'd be earning a f*** of a lot more than I am.” I ask Oscar-winning actress Olivia Colman about the gender pay gap in Hollywood. “I know of one pay disparity which is a 12,000% difference,” she tells me. pic.twitter.com/A0qPHIPK4N
— Christiane Amanpour (@amanpour) March 23, 2024
Amanpour then asked Colman, an Oscar-winning, four-time BAFTA award winner, about her own experience with gender pay disparity in the industry.
“I’m very aware that if I was Oliver Colman I would be earning a f*ck of a lot more than I am,” Colman responded.
She went on to say she is aware of a gender pay disparity that is a 12,000 per cent difference between a woman actor and her male counterpart.
It’s not the first time Colman, best known for her acting in Broadchurch, The Crown, The Favourite, Fleabag and Empire of Light, has spoken about Hollywood’s gender pay gap.
Just last month, speaking on the Radio Times podcast, Colman unpacked the “lie” that male actors “get more bums on seats” when it comes to box office returns.
“The narrative that [Hollywood] try and run…that men get paid more because they get more bums on seats — that’s bollocks. And it’s a lie,” Colman said.
The British A-list actor noted the overwhelming success of not just Barbie from last year, but also older films like Bridesmaids and Thelma and Louise.
Research backs up Colman’s statements too. In 2018, media research agency Shift7 conducted a study of the revenue from the top 350 high-grossing films released between 2014-2017. The results showed movies the women lead actors at any budget level, on average, outperformed male-led films.
“It’s proven in the box office to be not true,” Colman said on the Radio Times podcast. “So pay your actresses please.”
According to research from the University of Huddersfield in 2019, women in Hollywood earn around $1.1 million USD ($1.68 million AUD) less than their male counterparts.
Last year has been dubbed “the year of the woman” for Hollywood, largely thanks to the “Barbiemania” that took the world by storm in 2023.
However, data released last month from the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative found women’s representation in Hollywood in 2023 was the lowest in a decade, with Hollywood investing in predominantly male-centred movies last year.
Lead researcher Stacy L. Smith described 2023 as “a catastrophic step back for girls and women in film”.