All hail the Queen: Claire Foy reimbursed after gender pay gap on The Crown

All hail the Queen: Claire Foy reimbursed after gender pay gap on The Crown

Over the past two years, Claire Foy has received a multitude of praise and accolades for her portrayal of an early Queen Elizabeth in Netflix’ drama, ‘The Crown’.

She has been commended for her “brilliantly subtle” performance, her “fantastic, scintillating” exposé of The Queen and lauded as the shining star in a brilliant and compelling series.

So, when it was revealed in March that Foy had been paid substantially less than her male co-star, Matt Smith (Prince Philip), for the first two seasons of ‘The Crown’ it was hard to fathom. It is unknown the exact discrepancy between the two actors’ pay, but according to The Daily Mail it was in the region of £200,000 ($363,855.00 AUD).

But this was not an issue to be swept under the rug and forgotten about entirely.

Yesterday, Netflix and the makers of the hit drama reported that Foy will receive full backpay for their error also announcing that the production company seeks to close the gender pay gap altogether. A far cry from their original defence that Smith had been paid more because of his stint as ‘Doctor Who’ on one of Britain’s most popular television shows.


On an Emmy panel last week, Foy indirectly addressed the issue speaking about female empowerment and her own personal revelations in an era of disclosure.

“I have had the most extraordinary sort of revelation about myself and womankind. It’s sort of amazing, the conversations that people are having now — people think we’ve always been able to have [them], but we haven’t,” she said.

She added that she now felt the confidence to speak out amidst support and bravery from other women.

“It’s about being able to feel you can be your own advocate, and you can make a point and you can say something without it being you being difficult. It can actually just be you supporting yourself,” she said. “Having an opinion as a woman is something that I’ve never felt I had the right to, and I’ve felt that happening and it’s extraordinary.”

The ongoing pay disparity between male and female stars was first revealed in annual lists published by Forbes magazine. Emma Stone emerged as the best-paid actress on £19m, while Mark Wahlberg was the highest paid man, with £49m estimated annual earnings.

 

 

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