Not even nepotism babies are immune from the pay inequality raging in Hollywood. Bryce Dallas Howard confirmed as much when she commented on the reports that she was paid $2 million less than Chris Pratt for Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. In fact, it was worse.
“I was paid so much less than the reports even said, so much less,” she told Insider, referring to a 2018 Variety report that claimed she was being paid $8 million for the sequel compared with Pratt’s $10 million. “When I started negotiating for Jurassic, it was 2014, and it was a different world, and I was at a great disadvantage. And, unfortunately, you have to sign up for three movies, and so your deals are set.” This implies that Howard was continually paid less than her male co-star for all three Jurassic World movies.
Howard said she’d spoken to Pratt about the pay disparity, leading him to push for equal pay on other Jurassic World–related projects that weren’t already solidified in contract — video games, theme-park rides, etc. “Chris and I have discussed it,” she said. “And whenever there was an opportunity to move the needle on stuff that hadn’t been already negotiated, like a game or a ride, he literally told me: ‘You guys don’t even have to do anything. I’m gonna do all the negotiating. We’re gonna be paid the same, and you don’t have to think about this, Bryce.’” Even I have to admit, that’s a pretty great show of solidarity. “And I love him so much for doing that. I really do, because I’ve been paid more for those kinds of things than I ever was for the movie.”
Pay inequality in Hollywood is still the norm. In 2019, a group of economics professors — John S. Heywood, Maria Navarro Paniagua, and Sofia Izquierdo Sanchez — found that, on average, women in Hollywood were paid $1 million less than their male co-stars with similar experience. As reported by Forbes, top-paid actresses in 2018 earned 30 cents for every dollar earned by the top-male actors. So while the news isn’t all that surprising that Howard got paid way less than her male co-star, it is disappointing.
