Robin Wright is no stranger to Hollywood, after all, she’s played iconic roles such as Princess Buttercup in ‘The Princess Bride’ and Jenny Gump in ‘Forrest Gimp’, and she’s paid her dues accordingly.
Which is why she wasn’t the least bit hesitant to stand her ground when it came to demanding equal pay and billing from Netflix for her role on her latest hit drama House of Cards.
The veteran actress even went so far as to threaten to go public if she were not paid the same rate as leading man actor Kevin Spacey…though now it is public so we’re not sure how her threat was thwarted.
“It was the perfect paradigm. There are very few films or TV shows where the male, the patriarch, and the matriarch are equal. And they are in House of Cards,” Wright said.
“I was like: ‘I want to be paid the same as Kevin.’”
And Robin was…
Wright of course plays sly and slightly sinister first lady Claire Underwood (who may or may not be based on Hillary Clinton), the wife and co-conspirator of President Frank Underwood, played by Spacey.
“I was looking at the statistics and Claire Underwood’s character was more popular than [Frank’s] for a period of time. So I capitalized on it,” Wright said on Tuesday.
“I was like: ‘You’d better pay me or I’m going to go public.’ And they did.”
Wright divulged all of these truths while she was in New York to promote her campaign to end the pillage of Congo’s natural resources.
She went on to tell the audience that her earning power had been stunted by having children during her marriage to Hollywood badboy Sean Penn.
“Because I wasn’t working full-time, I wasn’t building my salary bracket. If you don’t build that … with notoriety and presence, you’re not in the game any more. You become a B-list actor. You’re not box office material,” she insisted.
But again, explain to me the part where she threatened to embarrass Netflix by going public, they paid her off, and she went public anyhow…doesn’t seem like she has much leverage in negotiations next time around…
