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Michelle Williams and Mark Wahlberg pay disparity investigated by Screen Actors Guild

Walhberg was reportedly paid 1,500 times more than Williams for reshooting All The Money In The World

Roisin O'Connor
Thursday 11 January 2018 14:41 GMT
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The Screen Actors Guild is investigating whether Ridley Scott's film All The Money In The World broke any of its contract rules after reports emerged that actor Mark Walhberg apparently received $1.5m to reshoot scenes with Christopher Plummer.

The unprecedented reshoots took place over nine days after multiple men came forward with accusations of sexual misconduct against Kevin Spacey.

Scott enlisted the cast and crew to reshoot scenes in London and Rome with Plummer, who replaced Spacey in the role of J. Paul Getty, just weeks before the film’s release date.

Scott had previously told USA Today that everyone apart from the crew and Plummer had agreed to do the reshoots for “nothing".

However reports in the Washington Post and USA Today claimed Walhberg received $1.5m to do the scenes, while Williams had received just above scale, totalling less than $1,000.

A SAG-AFTRA spokesperson said in a statement: “We are unambiguously in favour of pay equity between men and women in this industry and support every action to move in this direction."

An unidentified Deadline source claimed: “If Williams was paid at least scale for the reshoots, there’s nothing SAG-AFTRA can do about it, and anything Wahlberg may have negotiated above scale is OK with the union.”

According to the USA Today report, Williams was not told about Walhberg's fee when she agreed to do the extra work for minimal pay.

The news prompted uproar in the film world and became a rallying cry for the gender pay gap in Hollywood, with figures including Jessica Chastain and Judd Apatow calling for answers as to how such a huge disparity between actors had occurred.

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Arguing against claims that Walhberg was the more bankable star, Vulture reporter Mark Harris pointed out the domestic gross for his last five wide releases was $476.9m. Williams's last five took $505.3m.

Walhberg was also recently named as the "most overpaid actor of 2017" by Forbes.

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