“I was like, ‘You better pay me or I’m going to go public.’ And they did,” Robin Wright proclaimed last spring about finally achieving equal pay to her “House Of Cards” co-star Kevin Spacey, who was reportedly earning $500,000 per episode for the series in 2014, and I’d wager a bit more for the new season. However, when recently asked about her pay raise, Wright admits it didn’t quite work out the way she thought it would.
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“I don’t think I’m getting paid the same amount. They told me I was getting a raise. But…I don’t think so,” she told Rhapsody. The magazine explains that Wright was told that since Spacey is also a producer on the show, his pay grade was always going to be a bit higher. However, the actress was offered additional financial incentives, and perhaps most tantalizingly, a lucrative production deal with backers, Media Rights Capital.
Nonetheless, Wright reflects on the situation and the industry as a whole, calling for more systemic change, that will lead to inequality in pay between men and women being a thing from the past. “I really don’t like being duped,” she said. “Nobody does. It’s such a male-dominant workforce still. There’s a conditioning. And changing the condition of men is what needs to happen. A reeducation. A new way of thinking. A new philosophy. I think it needs to happen in all of these industries, when we’re doing the same thing that a man is doing, and we’re still getting paid less.”
It’s a fascinating reminder that even when issues like this hit the media, and become regular topics of conversation, behind closed doors, many power structures remain in place that keep inequalities in place.
“House Of Cards” season five arrives on May 30th. [via Vulture]
