Emma Stone Reveals Male Co-Stars Took Pay Cut to Close Wage Gap
Emma Stone‘s male co-stars have taken a pay cut to match her salary. The actress will portray tennis icon Billie Jean King in the forthcoming film Battle of the Sexes.
In a new interview with Out, Stone and her Battle of the Sexes co-star Andrea Riseborough spoke candidly about gender equality with King. While the Oscar winner does not name names, she noted that she has “needed” her male co-stars in past projects to take a pay cut after being offered a larger salary quote to close the pay gap. “That’s something they do for me because they feel it’s what’s right and fair,” she revealed.
For Stone, her male co-stars recognizing the unequal and unjust difference is the first step to making change. “That’s something that’s also not discussed, necessarily — that our getting equal pay is going to require people to selflessly say, ‘That’s what’s fair,'” she added. “If my male co-star, who has a higher quote then me but believes we are equal, takes a pay cut so that I can match him, that changes my quote in the future and changes my life. And this is Billie Jean’s feminism, and I love it — she is equality, man: equality, equality, equality.”
Stone won her first Academy Award earlier this year, taking home the Best Actress trophy for her role in La La Land alongside Best Actor nominee Ryan Gosling. In Battle of the Sexes, she’ll portray King during her 1973 match against former tennis champion Bobby Riggs, who had publicly taunted female tennis players, specifically the World No. 1 player King. Stone’s Crazy Stupid Love co-star Steve Carell will play Riggs.