Natalie Portman Made Way Less than Ashton Kutcher for ‘No Strings Attached’

Image by No Strings Attached
Today in sadly unsurprising news, Natalie Portman revealed that she made significantly less than Ashton Kutcher for the 2011 rom-com “No Strings Attached.”
The 35-year-old actress told Marie Claire UK that Kutcher was paid three times more than her, despite the fact that both played starring roles in the film.
“I knew and I went along with it, because there’s this thing with ‘quotes’ in Hollywood,” Portman said. “His was three times higher than mine, so they said he should get three times more.”
She explained that there was also some guilt associated with protesting her paycheck. “I wasn’t as pissed as I should have been,” Portman said. “I mean, we get paid a lot, so it’s hard to complain, but the disparity is crazy.”
Portman added: “Compared to men, in most professions, women make 80 cents to the dollar. In Hollywood, we are making 30 cents to the dollar.”
The “Jackie” star isn’t the first actress to speak out about the wage gap in Hollywood.
In December, “Shameless” star Emmy Rossum was locked in a fierce negotiation battle with Showtime over the disparity in her and co-star William H. Macy’s salaries.
Rossum sought more pay than Macy, as a retroactive gesture for being paid less than him for the previous seven seasons. While the results of those negotiations were never revealed, the odds looked like they were in Rossum’s favor when she took to Twitter to announce she’d be returning to the show for the next season.
“Playing Fiona Gallagher has been one of the great privileges of my life. I’m so happy to continue w my SHAMELESS family!Back to work in May!” the actress wrote.
Playing Fiona Gallagher has been one of the great privileges of my life. I’m so happy to continue w my SHAMELESS family!Back to work in May!
— Emmy Rossum (@emmyrossum) December 14, 2016
Thea Glassman is an Associate Editor at the Forward. Reach her at [email protected]
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
News A Jewish Republican and Muslim Democrat are suddenly in a tight race for a special seat in Congress
- 2
Fast Forward The NCAA men’s Final Four has 3 Jewish coaches
- 3
Film & TV What Gal Gadot has said about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
- 4
Fast Forward Cory Booker proclaims, ‘Hineni’ — I am here — 19 hours into anti-Trump Senate speech
In Case You Missed It
-
News Who would protect New York Jews better? Cuomo and Lander trade attacks on the campaign trail
-
News Rabbis revolt over LGBTQ+ club, exposing fight over queer acceptance at Yeshiva University
-
Opinion In Qatargate fiasco, Netanyahu’s ‘witch hunt’ narrative takes cues from Trump
-
Yiddish די הגדה ווי אַ לעבעדיקער דענקמאָל פֿון אַשכּנזישער פּאָעזיעThe Haggadah as a living monument to Ashkenazi poetry
אַמאָל זענען די פּייטנים, מיסטישע דיכטער־וויזיאָנערן, געווען אויבן־אָן בײַ די פֿראַנצויזישע און דײַטשישע ייִדן.
-
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.