| making this an issue of gender is disingenuous ... | |
| Last Edit: Chazwaza 04:22 pm EST 02/27/21 | |
| Posted by: Chazwaza 04:04 pm EST 02/27/21 | |
| In reply to: re: Sienna Miller and Broadway pay equity — did we ever figure out which play this was? - mikem 09:02 pm EST 02/26/21 | |
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| For better or worse, casting actors in broadway plays and in movies much of the time has a LOT to do with how their name and career currently and up to that point might impact ticket sales. Assuming it was Blackbird, Jeff Daniels wasn't offered more *because he is a man* but because, as you outlined, he was in a position, career and name-wise, to demand that and get it, and certainly to start at a higher offer even as an opening offer than would be offered to Miller. She wasn't in the same position. (He also created the role off-broadway, perhaps that meant something, perhaps not) While this isn't a fair comparison, would anyone blink an eye at how much more Julia Roberts was paid for 3 Days of Rain than her much-less-famous-but-also-famous co-stars Paul Rudd and Bradley Cooper? (and if they were paid close, i'm sure the power was Roberts to agree to that or not... but by this play, Cooper had already done Wedding Crashers, a much bigger movie than anything Miller's done, and Rudd was a popular favorite for at least 15 years by then) In many ways it would be nice if the policy with actors would be "they have equal roles, so they get equal pay" ... but actors are cast, often, with their box-presumed office power very firmly in mind, not just because they are the "best" for the job in terms of talent/ability etc, or for the amount of work they will be doing in comparison to other acting jobs in the play. Jeff Daniels and the producers of Blackbird didn't make these standards. Is the answer then to pay the lesser name the same salary that the bigger name could demand? Why? Or to probably lose the bigger name to maintain lower pay but pay equality? I do think Blackbird, assuming it's the play in question, is an unusual case of a 2-person play that is equally weighted and extremely taxing and the subject matter makes paying the actors differently (especially the woman less) ironic and a very bad look... the combo of both categories of consideration might have behooved producers to ask them to work at the same rate... i dunno. Clearly not. If it opened today, it almost definitely would... but today, as then, they would likely have cast it with actors of equal weight in the fame and box office appeal (aka Michelle Williams, not Sienna Miller), and paying them equal amounts wouldn't have been as much of a question, i'd think, if purely for optics if nothing else. Which isn't to say that unfair sexist pay inequality doesn't happen plenty and happen with female actors with big names, of course it does and it should not. (the Williams/Wahlberg situation is absolutely insane, even considering that he is a much bigger global draw than she is... the disparity is still mind-boggling) I think there's a case to be made that Sienna Miller might have had equal power to attract the audiences that know her, a different audience than the one Daniels has power with. So I'm not going to say that she shouldn't have been paid equally if that's true (and in the situation of pay being party based on box office draw, as it clearly seems to have been in this case). I think Michelle Williams has much more power than Miller (and not for no reason, for a long career of quality work with some lucky hits along the way), at least as much as Daniels, and so if she got equal (or more) pay, I wouldn't be surprised -- in fact I'd say it were wrong if she didn't. I don't think Allison Pill, who did it off-broadway with Daniels, would have been offered any more than Sienna Miller was, in fact maybe less as she has even less fame and name than Miller. It's complicated, and in show business it's just never going to be as simple as equal pay for equal work, because the actual work of acting the role is by no means all that goes into hiring or determining the pay of an actor in a commercial project. But perhaps the better way to do it is to pay equally for the work and negotiate different back-end percentages from sales or profit for each lead actor? Then they are only paid more in ratio and depending on if their supposed box office draw works. |
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| Previous: | re: Sienna Miller and Broadway pay equity — did we ever figure out which play this was? - mikem 09:02 pm EST 02/26/21 |
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