14 of Forbes' highest-paid actors made more than highest-paid actress Emma Stone
Forbes just released its list of highest-paid actors, and the numbers show a huge disparity between men and women in Hollywood. Mark Wahlberg, the highest-paid actor on Forbes' list, made $68 million in 2017, more than 2.5 times the $26 million Emma Stone made.
Moreover, 14 of the actors on the list made more than Stone, including her "La La Land" co-star Ryan Gosling, who made $29 million. Stone won an Oscar for her role; Gosling did not.
The top 10 actors made a combined $488.5 million -- almost triple what the top 10 actresses made with combined earnings of $172.5 million.
Forbes chalks the disparity up in part to the number and types of roles offered to women in Hollywood. Most of the highest-paying roles are in action and superhero blockbusters and franchise sequels like "The Fast and the Furious." Also, women comprise just over a quarter of all speaking roles in movies according to a 2016 study.
The pay gap between men and women is a hot topic in Hollywood. Jennifer Lawrence, who was Forbes' highest-paid actress in 2015 and 2016 wrote an essay about getting paid less than her male co-stars. She said she only found out after the 2015 Sony hack that her male colleagues were raking in higher salaries: "When the Sony hack happened and I found out how much less I was being paid than the lucky people with d***s, I didn't get mad at Sony," she wrote. "I got mad at myself. I failed as a negotiator because I gave up early. I didn't want to keep fighting over millions of dollars that, frankly, due to two franchises, I don't need."
Lawrence said that her failure to negotiate stemmed from a desire to be likable.
"I didn't want to seem 'difficult' or 'spoiled,'" she wrote. "At the time, that seemed like a fine idea, until I saw the payroll on the Internet and realized every man I was working with definitely didn't worry about being 'difficult' or 'spoiled.'"
At the time, she specifically name-checked her "American Hustle" co-stars Jeremy Renner, Christian Bale and Bradley Cooper, saying they all nabbed great salaries for themselves while she was "busy worrying about coming across as a brat."