Jessica Chastain on gender pay gap: ‘There have been films I’ve walked away from’

Speaking out: Jessica Chastain has walked away from films over the pay
Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images
Jennifer Ruby11 April 2016
The Weekender

Sign up to our free weekly newsletter for exclusive competitions, offers and theatre ticket deals

I would like to be emailed about offers, event and updates from Evening Standard. Read our privacy notice.

Jessica Chastain is the latest A-lister to speak out about the gender pay gap in Hollywood.

The US actress, who has been nominated for two Oscars, has admitted that she’s ‘walked away’ from films because of unfair pay.

Speaking to The Guardian, she said: “I think people know, if they’re going to hire me I’m not going to just be grateful.

“There have been situations where I have lost movies because I’ve said, this is not a fair deal, and I’ve walked away”.

The Martian cast - in pictures

1/7

Chastain, 39, went on to say that she was aware of a big-name actress who had got only a fraction of her male co-star’s salary recently.

“This woman, she’s very famous, she’s been nominated for many, many Oscars. For one film, the man got paid $4m and she got $250,000,” she said.

“People still think, oh, why do women go on about the wage gap? Well, it’s across every industry.”

Chastain was famously paid less than $7 million for her role in last year's The Martain, while male lead Matt Damon earned a staggering $25 million.

Chastain has also rubbished rumours that she’d been embroiled in a feud with fellow A-lister Jennifer Lawrence.

“It’s this long fairytale that women don’t get along. But we’re changing that,” she said.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in