For Don’t Look Up, the two headliners Jennifer Lawrence and Leonardo DiCaprio did not receive the same salary. The actress explains why she was paid less than her playmate in Adam McKay’s new comedy on Netflix.
Headliners of Don’t Look Up, the new offbeat comedy from Adam McKay, Jennifer Lawrence and Leonardo DiCaprio play two astronomers who have detected an Earth-threatening comet. To save humanity, they will do everything to warn the population, the media and politicians of the danger it faces, despite incredible obstacles.
While the two actors are the two leading roles in the film and share similar screen time, they didn’t get the same pay. A report published in Variety indicates that Leonardo DiCaprio received 30 million dollars (more than 26 million euros) while Jennifer Lawrence was paid 25 million dollars (more than 22 million euros).
And this gap of about 20% is equivalent to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which conducted a survey of wage inequalities between men and women on their annual earnings in 2020. For the same full-time job, a woman would earn about 83 cents of a man’s dollar in the United States. This is therefore the case here for Jennifer Lawrence.
NIKO TAVERNISE / NETFLIX
A justified pay gap according to the actress
In a river interview for Vanity Fair, the Oscar-winning actress explained this pay gap, which she says can be justified: “Leo makes more at the box office than I am. I am extremely lucky and happy with my contract.”
While the actress did not feel aggrieved, she does not question the fact that the fight against pay inequalities is far from over:
“But in other situations, what I’ve seen – and I’m sure other women in the workforce have seen it too – is that it is extremely difficult to find out about pay equity. And if you question something that seems unequal, you’re told it’s not a gender disparity, but you can’t be told what it’s really about. “
Despite this pay gap, Jennifer Lawrence negotiated a top spot in the opening credits of Don’t Look Up. Indeed, the name of the actress appears first, before that of Leonardo DiCaprio, when they were supposed to appear together.
Since she was first on the call sheet, the actress brought this idea to the team during the production of the film: “It suits me very well to be first on the call list [du casting]. And I thought that [les crédits] had to reflect that. Leo was very elegant about it. “