Somewhere, Claire Underwood is approving this message with one of her crafty Mona Lisa smiles. “House of Cards,” not only sharing the stage with Kevin Spacey (even breaking the fourth wall with him in 2016’s recent Season 4) but also acting as an executive producer on the last 13 episodes, and director of seven from the past two seasons. Spacey, who plays President Frank Underwood, is also an executive producer on the show, but he hasn’t directed any episodes.
This is only relevant because actress Robin Wright just revealed she took a cue from her FLOTUS character and stepped up to demand equal pay for the Netflix series.
As the actress told the audience at the Rockefeller Foundation (via Huffington Post), “I was like, ‘I want to be paid the same as Kevin.’ It was the perfect paradigm. There are very few films or TV shows where the male, the patriarch, and the matriarch are equal. And they are in ‘House of Cards.’” She added, “I was looking at the statistics and Claire Underwood’s character was more popular than [Frank’s] for a period of time. So I capitalized on it. I was like, ‘You better pay me or I’m going to go public.’” She smiled. “And they did.”
According to HuffPost, Spacey was making around $500K per episode before Season 3 debuted in 2014. His pay was said to potentially increase to $1 million, making him one of the highest-paid TV or streaming actors. They noted that, last year, Forbes listed Robin Wright’s HoC earnings at $5.5 million, which breaks down to around $420K an episode.
Season 4 was a good time for Robin to take a stand, since Claire was a fully equal lead character, as opposed to her more supporting role in the first couple of seasons. Plus, Robin had double duty as director for four 2016 episodes, which may or may not have been a factor in the overall package. Either way, good for her for standing up for her worth, threatening to go public if they said no (SUCH an Underwood move) and then sharing the results with the class. Maybe she’ll inspire other leading ladies to do the same.
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In the battle of President Frank Underwood (“House of Cards” audience.
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