'House of Cards' Season 4 News: Was Robin Wright's Equal Pay Demand A Quintessential Claire Underwood Move? [VIDEO]
Robin Wright revealed this week that she pushed her bosses at House of Cards for equal pay as her co-lead, Kevin Spacey.
Wright, who plays the conniving Claire Underwood on House of Cards, appeared at the Rockefeller Foundation on Tuesday where she revealed her demand to be paid the same as Spacey, who plays the equally conniving Frank Underwood.
"I was like, 'I want to be paid the same as Kevin,'" Wright said.
Like Spacey, Wright is also an executive producer on the Netflix political drama, but she has also directed several episodes since season 2. Wright took the opportunity to praise House of Cards for valuing both of its lead characters equally.
"It was a 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,'" Wright said.
This, in addition to Claire's popularity among fans was how Wright gained leverage to fully attain equal pay.
"I was looking at statistics and Claire Underwood's character was more popular than [Frank's] for a period of time. So I capitalized on that moment. I was like, 'You better pay me or I'm going to go public,'" Wright said, smiling. "And they did."
While Spacey was clearly a bigger name draw heading into House of Cards, Wright has now found herself in a career resurgence. The actress famously starred as Jenny in Forrest Gump and the titular character in The Princess Bride, but while her career fell off a bit after this point, she is receiving more praise than ever at this point as an actress.
"Because I wasn't working full time, I wasn't building my salary bracket. If you don't build salary bracket with notoriety and presence, you're not in the game anymore. You become a B-list actor. ... You're not box office material," Wright explained. "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."
Many House of Cards fans have taken to Twitter and likened Wright's demand for equal pay to something Claire would do.
House of Cards is currently available to stream on Netflix.