Global sensation Priyanka Chopra recently talked about the disparity in the fees of male and female actors and also shared an incident where she lost out on a film due to her skin colour.
Speaking about the wage disparity in an interview, PeeCee said that it happens everywhere, be it India or U.S.A. and the pay gap is staggering in films with big actors. She also revealed that she deals with such incidents by making her agent negotiate on her behalf. Referring to an incident where she faced colour-discrimination, Priyanka said that it happened last year when a studio executive called one of her agents and said, she has the wrong physicality.
Despite her talents as an actress though, she admitted that she was left ‘affected’ by the news, which her agent had to break down for her as she didn’t understand the coded language used by the casting agents.
‘It happened last year. I was out for a movie, and somebody [from the studio] called one of my agents and said, “She’s the wrong” – what word did they use? – “physicality”. So in my defense as an actor, I’m like, “Do I need to be skinnier? Do I need to get in shape? Do I need to have abs?” Like, what does “wrong physicality” mean?,’ she said. ‘And then my agent broke it down for me. Like, “I think, Priy, they meant that they wanted someone who’s not brown.” It affected me.’
Speaking to InStyle magazine, the Baywatch actress added that she was also still dismayed over the gender wage gap that faces women across the globe, even in the 21st century. ‘We’ve been taught for eons that women need to fight each other, clamber and climb on top of each other to get that one job. And, now we’re seeing through it … I feel it every year, especially when you’re doing movies with really big actors, whether it’s in India or America,’ she said.
Revealing that ‘if an actor is getting 100 bucks, the conversation will start with max, like, 8 bucks’ for women, she said that in India the issue is at least discussed whereas in Hollywood it is skirted around. ‘I’ve been told straight up, if it’s a female role in a movie with big, male actors attached, your worth is not really considered as much.
A producer-director said to me, “Well, you know how it is in these big tentpole movies with the big boys. This is the budget for the girl, and we can’t move beyond that,” which was, like, a measly five percent of what [the male lead] was getting,’ she said.