Gwyneth Paltrow has criticised the gap between male and female salaries in Hollywood, saying that her Iron Man co-star Robert Downey Jr was not worth his enormous pay cheque.
“Look, nobody is worth the money that Robert Downey Jr is worth,” Paltrow told Variety. Downey Jr frequently tops Forbes’s best-paid lists, earning $111m (£72.4m) in the past year, nearly $40m more than the best-paid female actor, Jennifer Lawrence.
Paltrow came in at No 12 on the list, having made $9m in 2014. The disparity between pay for men and women was, she said, “painful”.
“Your salary is a way to quantify what you’re worth. If men are being paid a lot more for doing the same thing, it feels shitty.”
Paltrow also queried whether, at 43, she would be deemed too old to return as Tony Stark’s love interest opposite 50-year-old Downey Jr.
“I’d like to,” she said, “but they might swap me out for an 18-year-old Pepper Potts or something.”
