Rogue One may have ditched the line where Felicity Jones’ Jyn Erso says, “This is a rebellion, isn’t it? I rebel.” But Jones managed to strike a significant blow against the Hollywood practice of paying female stars less than their male counterparts. According to the Hollywood Reporter, Jones was “by far” the highest-paid actor in the movie, earning over $1 million for playing the lead in the first of Star Wars’ spinoff “anthology” movies. None of her male co-stars, including Ben Mendelsohn, Diego Luna, and Riz Ahmed, took home more than “mid six-figures.”
The movie industry’s habit of valuing male actors over their female collagues was thrust into the spotlight by the Sony hack, which revealed that American Hustle’s Jennifer Lawrence was paid significantly less than the movie’s Bradley Cooper, Christian Bale, and Jeremy Renner, despite having played leading roles in the highly successful Hunger Games and X-Men franchises and being generally agreed upon as one of the industry’s brightest stars. Lawrence subsequently blamed herself in part for not being a tougher negotiator, but when asked if the situation reflected larger industry practices, then-Sony chair Amy Pascal responded, “[T]here is truth here.”
While Lucasfilm’s Kathleen Kennedy has taken criticism recently for suggesting that there were no female directors currently qualified to direct a Star Wars movie, it appears that the studio is willing to pay a leading woman an appropriate salary—providing she asks for it. Speaking of Jones, the Reporter’s source said, “She knows her worth.”
