In her new memoir, ‘Around The Way Girl’, Empire star Taraji P. Henson candidly claimed she was paid far less than her fellow actors in 2008’s ‘The Curious Case of Benjamin Button’.
Released yesterday, the memoir also details how she was passed over for a role written specifically for her, in favor of a white actress.
In the film, Henson plays the adoptive mother of co-star Brad Pitt’s character and was third billed. She was eventually nominated for an Academy Award for the role, but claims to have received less than 2% of Pitt’s salary. She was also forced to pay her own location fees for the duration of the three month shoot.
In an excerpt published by The Guardian, Henson writes:
“Both Brad and Cate got millions. Me? With bated breath, I sat by the phone for hours, waiting for Vince [her manager] to call and tell me the number that I thought would make me feel good… something worthy of a solid up-and-coming actress with a decent amount of critical acclaim for her work. Alas, that request was dead on arrival. “I’m sorry, Taraji,” Vince said quietly when we finally connected.
“They came in at the lowest of six figures. I convinced them to add in a little more, but that’s as high as they’d go.” There was one other thing: I’d have to agree to pay my own location fees while filming in New Orleans, meaning three months of hotel expenses would be coming directly out of my pocket. Insult, meet injury.”
Henson goes onto describe that taking the role was imperative to supporting roles for black women, saying “…there are way more talented black actresses than there are intelligent, meaningful roles for them.”
She went on to say: “This is exactly how a studio can get away with paying the person who’s name is third on the call sheet of a big-budget film less than 2% what it’s paying the person whose name is listed first.”
In a chapter entitled ‘Being a Black Woman in Hollywood’, Henson discusses dismissal from a role in 2014’s ‘St Vincent’, despite the part being written specifically for her by writer/director Ted Melfi. The role ended up going to Naomi Watts “because someone with the ability to green-light a film couldn’t see black women beyond a very limited purview he or she thought ‘fit’ audience expectations”.
This isn’t the first time celebrities have openly discussed the gender pay-gap in Hollywood. Last year, Charlize Theron discussed successfully negotiating for equal pay in the Snow White & The Huntsman Sequel, whilst Jennifer Lawrence has previously penned a blog post on feminist Lena Dunham’s Lenny Letter entitled ‘Why Do I Make Less Than My Male Co- Stars?’
