Evan Rachel Wood Says She'll Receive Equal Pay for 'Westworld' Season 3
Despite being one of the main characters and arguably the most recognizable face of Westworld, Evan Rachel Wood said she was not paid the same as her male colleagues for the first two seasons. That’s coming to an end, though: The actress just confirmed that she’ll receive equal pay in the third season of the hit HBO show. (Season two is set to premiere on April 22.)
“I think I’m just now to the point where I’m getting paid the same as my male co-stars,” Wood said in a recent interview with TheWrap. Specifically, her salary will now be the same as costars Anthony Hopkins and Ed Harris, who play Dr. Ford and The Man in Black, respectively. “I was just told that, you know, ‘Hey you’re, you’re getting equal pay.’ And I was like,” she said, miming a gasp. “And I almost got emotional. I was like, ‘I have never been paid the same as my male counterparts … Never, never.’”
The change was not for lack of effort on the part of the star. Wood has been a vocal supporter of the Time’s Up and #MeToo movements, but felt her status did not compare to that of the two legendary actors. “I’m always fighting for [equal pay],” Wood added. “And I have turned down projects [because of it]. Westworld, it’s like, I get it a little more,” she said laughing. “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.”
Earlier this month, HBO pledged to address the gender pay disparity and close the gap. “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,” HBO executive Casey Bloys said in a recent interview.
“There is a lot of stuff that goes on behind the scenes. There is a lot of trying to make things equal and trying to make things fair. I don’t know, there is a lot of stuff,” Wood added, potentially referencing the recent changes at the company. “But this is the first time that somebody made a point of being like, ‘Hey you’re getting this. And you deserve it.’ And that was nice.”
Related: Evan Rachel Wood Speaks Out About Being Sexually Assaulted Twice