Robin Wright has recalled how she needed to receive multiple pay checks to hit pay parity with Kevin Spacey on House of Cards.
Wright was speaking at the Monte-Carlo TV Festival and went down memory discussing her battle for equal pay on the Netflix hit. She explained that she was told she couldn’t have equal pay as an actor, but the workaround was doling out three paychecks and having her act, direct and produce.
“They literally said: ‘Well, we can’t pay you the same as an actor, so we’re going to divvy it up to make it equal [and] make you executive producer, and then you can direct, and then we’ll give you three different paychecks.’ I said: ‘Why can’t you pay me the same as an actor?’ And they said: “Because you didn’t win an Academy Award.”
Elsewhere, Wright revealed that David Fincher foresaw the streaming revolution as House of Cards came together. “He said: ‘You know, this is going to be our future. We’re going to launch streaming… and I think it’ll be revolutionary.’ And look at where we are today.”
AI Fears
Robin Wright also talked about her fears that AI will take industry jobs. Responding to a question from Deadline about AI, she said: “It frightens me for our industry and it’s such a dichotomy. It’s tough, because I know it’s going to help in the medical world tremendously. But everywhere else, people are going to lose jobs.”
Not acting jobs, though, she added: “People say: ’Well, don’t you think that it’ll take over acting?’ I don’t think it ever can because I don’t think it will ever get the emotion in the eyes. You’ll never feel the resonance coming from that actor.”
Wright was taking part in a solo press conference. Separately, she was in a session on stage with Rola Bauer, the former Amazon MGM exec with whom she collaborated on Prime Video’s The Girlfriend. She stars in the show as well as directing and exec-producing.
She shared an exclusive clip of the show at the Festival. In it, she is chatting to her on-screen son in a sauna, and gently but firmly quizzing him about his new love interest.
Wright is being feted with the Festival’s highest honor, the Crystal Nymph Award, which is bestowed for career achievements and creating a lasting impact on the industry.
The post Robin Wright Says AI Is Coming For Industry Jobs & Recalls Battle For Equal Pay On ‘House Of Cards’: “It Was Difficult” appeared first on Deadline.
