Posted on 07/29/2018 7:35:19 AM PDT by EdnaMode
Despite a heavily circulated report from The Daily Mail a few months ago that stated Claire Foy, The Crown’s titular crown, would be paid about $250,000 in back pay following the show’s gender pay gap scandal, the actress is now saying there was no truth to the report and she wasn’t offered additional money for her role as Queen Elizabeth II. In a new interview with Al Arabiya, Foy disputed how the outlet came to that conclusion. “That was what was reported that I was back-paid. I’ve never mentioned anything about it and neither have the producers. The fact that that is ‘fact’ is — not quite correct,” she said. “Yes, it’s Netflix, but it’s a British production company. It happened at the same time as it was coming out with a lot of other people that there was a lot of pay inequality across the board — in the music industry, in journalism, in every industry. It’s across the board that it became part of a bigger conversation, which is an odd place to find yourself in.”
In March, one of The Crown’s producers, Suzanne Mackie, admitted during a panel discussion that Foy was paid less than Matt Smith, a supporting character, for their two seasons of work on the show. (Smith played Prince Philip.) “Going forward, no one gets paid more than the queen,” Mackie clarified. Smith later publicly supported Foy by saying “we should be paid equally and fairly,” while Foy opined how she found it “odd” to find herself “at the center [of a story] that you didn’t particularly ask for.”
Smith appears to be older than Foy, with a bigger resume and more acting experience ( he was Dr. Who for a while).
OTOH, it's the star that draws the crowd so maybe Claire should get the biggest check. Did Fonzie get paid more than Richie Cunningham?
Maybe they should pay actors by the line, or by the actual number of minutes they appear on screen? Seems I remember Harrison Ford getting $30M for being killed off early into a Star Wars movie.
Maybe it's just who has the best agent...
Good point. I was drawn to watch the show, not because of Claire Foy or any number of the capable actors but because like any good Whovian, I wanted to see Matt Smith in something he’s done since Dr. Who. If he hadn’t been in it, I doubt very much I’d have watched the show once, let alone twice.
Truth be told - and this is in just about any industry - experience reigns. More/better experience = higher pay, regardless of sex. I thought that’s why we work harder to get valuable experience so we could earn a bigger paycheck. Gender/sex should be irrelevant. If we’re to be paid the same as someone with lesser or negligible experience, what’s the point in working so hard?
I can’t get too worked up about pay frontpeople in the entertainment industry.
Also, Claire and the others were made an offer and accepted it. Ok she wasn’t paid as much as the other guy but was she paid well for her time, effort and skills.?
I bet that gal that played the Queen in The Naked Gun would work fairly cheap! Great Performance.
Claire Foy did a very good job but I actually thought he was better.
It’s so Ortecio-Cortezish (or whatever her name is) to say everyone should get paid the same. Actors are paid according to their popularity. Smith is more popular than Foy. I seriously doubt she expected to get paid the same as he did, nor is upset about what she did receive. Because of the show, she now can demand more on her next job. Or next season, for that matter, not because Smith was making more, but because her value as an actor has increased.
These people need to fire their agents and get someone who can negotiate a better deal for their clients. I had never heard of Claire Foy before but I had heard of Matt Smith. These whiny women need to grow up and learn how the business works. She’s no Meryl Streep or Scarlet Johannsen, or Sandra Bullock. (None of whom I like.) What blockbuster has Foy ever been in that she believes she deserves to earn as much as her coworkers and would she be willing to earn less so that some of her subordinates could earn more?
Prior to her work on The Crown, she played Anne Boelyn in the PBS series, Wolf Hall. Also, she was really carrying the most weight, in terms of being the title role in the piece, so she really should have been paid, at least, the same as Matt Smith, if not more.
When I was hired for my current job; HR asked me what I was looking for in terms of compensation. I gave them a figure that exceeded the compensation of the job I had at the time in order to make it worthwhile for me leave that job. If I find out later that some of my co-workers are getting paid better, then I did a poor job of negotiating. They gave me what I asked for in terms of compensation. The time to negotiate pay is at the beginning of the process.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.