Sharon Stone says she doesn’t see much change in Hollywood in regards to equal pay for male and female stars.

 Sharon Stone’s recent experience in the film industry highlights the ongoing issue of pay disparity between male and female actors. Despite her success and experience, she was offered the same salary as she received 30 years ago, while a new male actor was offered millions more.

 Pay inequality is not limited to Hollywood – it is a prevalent issue in all professions in the United States. The gender pay gap has barely closed in the last 20 years, with women earning only 82-84% of what men earn.
 The film industry has a particularly egregious gender pay gap, with female actors earning about 25% less than their male counterparts. This disparity is also reflected in the lack of female directors in Hollywood, where only about 22% of directors are women.

Sharon Stone is speaking out about Hollywood’s ongoing issues with pay disparity for its female and male stars. Speaking to Deadline at their Red Sea Studio in Jeddah, Stone revealed that she had recently turned down a role in a $100 million film as a result of the pay gap between her and a new, and relatively unknown, male actor. Stone’s offered salary was the exact amount she was paid for starring in 1992’s Basic Instinct, at least 16 times less than her costar would have been paid. She says:
“Thirty years ago, when I did ‘ Basic Instinct ,’ Michael Douglas made $14 million and I made $500,000. Last year, there was a $100 million film being made by a studio and the actor, who was new, was going to be paid something like $8 million or $9 million – someone we don’t really know – and the studio offered me again $500,000 to be the female lead. And I thought, thirty years later this is still happening. So, I don’t think it has changed much. So, I turned it down and the studio head said, ‘Well, good luck to you Sharon.’ And I said, ‘Well, good luck to you.’ And two weeks later he was fired.”

A study by Pew Research Center, a non-partisan think tank based in Washington DC, found that the gender gap in pay is a consistent issue throughout all professions in the United States; also of concern is that the gap has closed very little in the last 20 years. In 2022, women earned 82% of what men earned; In 2002, they earned 80% of what men made. The US Census Bureau has the 2022 number at 84% but only considers full-time employees. Pay disparity is really a global issue (according to the Global Gender Gap Index, no country has reached full gender parity), but the gender gap in pay seen in the film industry (where there is a wage difference of about 25% between male and female actors) is more egregious than in many other sectors.

Sharon Stone ‘Got Laughed Out of the Studio’ for Expressing Desire to Direct

TriStar Pictures

Greta Gerwig’s billion-dollar grossing Barbie is a step in the right direction. Stars Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling both took home the upfront figure of $12.5 million, with Robbie grossing even more because of bonuses (it is unknown if Gosling also received box-office bonuses). Robbie’s payout is not the norm for women in the film industry. It also stands to be noted that a woman directed Barbie, another place where Hollywood lacks equality: by role, women account for just about 22% of directors. As it turns out, Stone had hopes of directing but faced some difficulties. She tells Deadline:
“When I did ‘ Basic Instinct , ‘I wanted to direct a film and I got laughed out of the studio. And now you see that two out of the six women that had their films nominated in Cannes, were women that were funded out of Saudi Arabia. And so, people say, ‘Well how could you go to Saudi Arabia and look at all of those injustices in Saudi Arabia?’ And I said, ‘Well, I don’t know – I think it was pretty unjust that I couldn’t direct in America.”