Robin Wright demanded a pay increase to match ‘House of Cards’ co-star Kevin Spacey’s salary.
The 50-year-old actress – who has appeared in all 52 episodes of the show, as well as directing some of the series and serving as executive producer on the recent fourth season of the political drama – threatened to "go public" with the discrepancy if bosses on the Netflix programme didn’t recognise her contribution as First Lady and Vice Presidential candidate Claire Underwood is just as valuable as that of her on-screen spouse, who plays President Frank Underwood.
Speaking at an event at the Rockefeller Centre in New York on Tuesday (17.05.16), she said: "I was like, ‘I want to be paid the same as Kevin’.
"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’.
"I was looking at statistics and Claire Underwood’s character was more popular than [Frank’s] for a period of time. So I capitalised on it. I was like, ‘You better pay me or I’m going to go public’ And they did."
Robin – who has children Dylan, 25, and Hopper, 22, with ex-husband Sean Penn – took time out from her film career to raise her family and admits it impacted both her earnings and her professional standing.
She said: "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 anymore. You become a B-list actor. You’re not box office material
"You don’t hold the value you would have held if you had done four movies a year like Nicole Kidman and Cate Blanchett did during the time I was raising my kids. Now I’m kind of on a comeback at 50 years old."
Last year, financial bible Forbes reported Robin had made $5.5 million for her work on ‘House of Cards’, which worked out to around
$420,000 an episode.
In 2014, Kevin, 56, was said to be making $500,000 per episode ahead of season 3 debuting, but it was predicted it could rise to $1 million.
Robin Wright demanded equal pay
