Reese Witherspoon has revealed she recently took a studio boss to task in a bid to demand equal pay for another actress.
The Big Little Lies star got candid on the issue of the pay gap between men and women, recalling how she stepped in to ensure that a female star was given the same amount of money as her male counterpart.
Speaking to InStyle magazine, Witherspoon said: “I had a conversation last week that I never would have had seven years ago. It was about compensation — what a woman would make on a project versus what a guy in a similar position would make.
“I went to the mat for that woman. She’ll never know I made that call or had that conversation with the head of a studio.
“But I said to him, ‘This is the comp. This white guy over here is making this amount of money, and she’s done this, that, and the other with such success — and you’re asking for her to have a third of that. That’s not OK with me.”
Her show co-star Zoe Kravitz opened up on how she felt she needed to look “like a supermodel” in order to land the role of a “hot girl who can play some guys girlfriend” but later learned she could be a lot more.
She told the publication: “I dealt with eating disorders in high school and my early 20s. I always felt like I needed to look like a supermodel to do my job, which I don’t. The supermodels are doing it quite well.
“But when you’re starting your career, you think you have to be the hot girl who can play some guy’s girl- friend. And then you work more, and you grow up. With Big Little Lies, we were all so hungry to play real characters. It’s not about what we look like, it’s about what we feel like.”
The comments come ahead of US drama Big Little Lies’ return to screens with a second season slated for release next month.
InStyle magazine hits newsstands nationwide May 17 and Big Little Lies will air in the UK on June 10.
