Natalie Portman Slams ‘Crazy’ Hollywood Pay Discrimination

Image by getty images
Natalie Portman slammed the gender pay gap as “crazy” – and said it was even worse in Hollywood than in other jobs.
Portman revealed that she was paid three times less than her male co-star Ashton Kutcher for her role in the 2011 romantic comedy “No Strings Attached.”
“Compared to men, in most professions, women make 80 cents to the dollar,” Portman told Marie Claire. “In Hollywood we are making 30 cents to the dollar.”
The 35-year-old star – who won a best actress Oscar in 2011 for her role in “Black Swan” and plays Jackie Kennedy in a forthcoming biopic about the former U.S. First Lady – said the pay disparity was “crazy.”
The World Economic Forum, a non-profit foundation, predicts the global gender pay disparity may take up to 170 years to close.
Hacked documents from film studio Sony Pictures revealed major pay disparities between top actors.
They showed that U.S. actress Jennifer Lawrence was paid less than her male co-stars Christian Bale and Bradley Cooper in the 2013 black comedy “American Hustle.”—Reuters
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
2X match on all Passover gifts!
Most Popular
- 1
Fast Forward The NCAA men’s Final Four has 3 Jewish coaches
- 2
Fast Forward Cory Booker proclaims, ‘Hineni’ — I am here — 19 hours into anti-Trump Senate speech
- 3
News A Jewish Republican and Muslim Democrat are suddenly in a tight race for a special seat in Congress
- 4
Fast Forward Cory Booker’s rabbi has notes on Booker’s 25-hour speech
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward Texas bakery reportedly becomes first bagel shop to be named James Beard Award finalist
-
Fast Forward ‘That’s Simchas Torah’: The Jewish Val Kilmer moment you might have missed
-
Opinion I co-wrote Biden’s antisemitism strategy. Trump is making the threat worse
-
Fast Forward From ‘October 8’ to ‘The Encampments,’ these new documentaries illuminate the post-Oct. 7 American experience
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.