Evan Rachel Wood Is Now Going To Get Equal Pay As Her Male Costars In 'Westworld'
Evan Rachel Wood reveals she is up for a salary bump in Westworld's third season, finally getting as much as her male costars.
Evan Rachel Wood Gets A Pay Bump
Consider this one a win for Time's Up as the actress, who is one of the main faces of the HBO sci-fi drama's ensemble cast, says her pay will shoot up to equal her male colleagues for the third season. Westworld's cast is an accomplished one that includes Anthony Hopkins, Ed Harris, Thandie Newton, James Marsden, and Jeffrey Wright, among others.
"I think I'm just now to the point where I'm getting paid the same as my male co-stars," Wood tells The Wrap in a recent interview just ahead of her show's Season 2 premiere. "I was just told that, you know, 'Hey you're, you're getting equal pay.' ... And I almost got emotional. I was like, 'I have never been paid the same as my male counterparts ... Never, never.'"
The actress is an active voice for the Time's Up, a movement seeking safety and equality for women in workplaces everywhere.
"I'm always fighting for that," Wood continues, saying that there have been times that she's turned down other projects over similar incidents. "[In] Westworld, I get it a little more. It's like, 'Well, you're Anthony Hopkins or Ed Harris.' But I think now we're all doing equal amounts of work and really hard work."
For much of her career, Wood says her salary has been the same for years. While she acknowledges that she's very lucky, it's not fair for a person to get paid less for being a woman. Now, though, the conversation is being initiated as she explains there are plenty of stuff behind the scenes in an attempt to make the industry fairer and more equal for everyone involved.
"But this is the first time that somebody made a point of being like, 'Hey you're getting this. And you deserve this.' And that was nice," she says.
The second season of Westworld is only just about to begin, but reports of Wood's increase in salary means a third season is well on its way.
Westworld Season 2 airs on Sunday, April 22 on HBO.
HBO On Bridging The Pay Disparity
In an interview with Hollywood Reporter, HBO programming president Casey Bloys spoke up about the impact of the widespread Time's Up movement and the success of female-centric Big Little Lies in renewing their commitment in prioritizing equality.
According to the executive, the network is now working toward successfully bridging the gap in salary and opportunities between their male and female employees.
"We've proactively gone through all of our shows — in fact, we just finished our process where we went through and made sure that there were no inappropriate disparities in pay; and where there were, if we found any, we corrected it going forward," Bloys says, explaining that this initiative is a result of Time's Up.
He explained that this doesn't mean that the network will be paying all men and women the same across the board, but that negotiations will be more fair especially beyond the pilot season of any show. When a show is successful, Bloys says HBO is planning to be more receptive to the cast moving forward.
"When you're putting a show together, people come in with different levels of experience and maybe some people have won awards or something that makes them stand out," Bloys explains, adding that when a successful show is in its second or third season, it's harder to justify giving people disparate salaries. "And that's where you have to make sure that you're looking at the numbers — that they don't end up just on the path they were on from the pilot stage."
Wood's recent salary increase is a good example with the actress getting a bump in the third season of the hit series after getting less than Hopkins and Harris in the first two seasons of Westworld.
