We all know there’s nothing good to say about the gender pay gap. Women with post-graduate degrees still earn less than men without one. The US women’s soccer team has filed a lawsuit against the sport’s official governing body over pay disparities, among other things, with their male counterparts. And reporting by British companies this year found that the gender pay gap had GROWN at thousands of firms.

Although it only affects a small number of people, the most visible evidence of the gender pay gap comes from Hollywood’s actors, where women are consistently paid less than men. 

Claire Foy was paid less than Matt Smith for Netflix’s The Crown, even though played the Queen; Octavia Spencer only got equal pay for a forthcoming Netflix series after the intervention of LeBron James; and Jennifer Lawrence spoke out after a leak revealed she and Amy Adams had been paid less than their male co-stars for American Hustle. And who could forget that Michelle Williams reportedly received less than $1,000 for reshoots on All the Money in the World, while Mark Wahlberg got $1.5m.

Also in that film, which had to undergo reshoots after Kevin Spacey was replaced by Christopher Plummer, was Stacy Martin, who will next be on screen alongside Natalie Portman in Vox Lux.

In an interview with the Independent, the actress said that “we’re misunderstanding where the problem lies” when we talk about pay equality.

Speaking about Williams and Wahlberg, Martin said: “I think the reason why they were paid differently was because they didn’t have the same contract. And then there’s the way a film is financed. There’s still this concept that a man is more bankable than a woman.”

Martin, who was also in High-Rise with Tom Hiddleston and will soon be seen in Kirsten Dunst’s directorial debut, an adaptation of Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar, has said that she has “never been paid equally” to her male counterparts, citing bankability as the reason why.

While we understand that the audience an actor brings to a project will have some impact on their pay packet, actresses should receive equal pay for equal work. And until they do, like Martin, they’ll keep speaking out.

Images: Getty