Emma Stone is now Hollywood’s highest paid actress, earning $26 million in the past year to take the top spot on Forbes’ annual Highest-Paid Actress list. Enjoying a spike in earnings thanks to the box office success of La La Land, for which she won her first Academy Award, Emma has outranked her friend Jennifer Lawrence who, with annual earnings of $24 million, comes in third place behind Jennifer Aniston, who earned $25.5 million.
Earlier this year, Emma revealed that some of her male co-stars have taken pay cuts to ensure that she received equal pay. ‘In my career so far, I’ve needed my male co-stars to take a pay cut so that I may have parity with them,’ she told OUT magazine. ‘And that’s something they do for me because they feel it’s what’s right and fair. That’s something that’s also not discussed, necessarily – that our getting equal pay is going to require people to selflessly say, “That’s what’s fair.”’
The highest paid British actress is Emma Watson, who came in sixth place, appearing in the Forbes list for the first time thanks to her Beauty and the Beast earnings.
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Hollywood’s lack of diversity can be clearly seen in the top 10, which does not feature a single woman of colour: while 2016 saw Chinese actress Fan Bingbing and Indian megastar Deepika Padukone made the cut, their earnings have apparently dropped this year due to ‘quieter schedules,’ according to estimates by the magazine.
Forbes associate editor Natalie Robehmed alluded to the list’s lack of diversity in a statement, commenting that ‘The lack of diversity on the list comes down to roles: Only 28.3% of all speaking toles across formats go to characters from underrepresented racial / ethnic groups, according to a 2016 study. That means there are simply fewer characters – and fewer high-paying roles – written for women of colour. When studios, directors and screenwriters begin creating more main characters for women of colour in the types of big budget movies that pay huge upfront fees and backend profits, we’ll see more actors of colour on the list.’
The full Forbes Best-Paid Actress List is as follows...
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