Emma Stone: ‘Male co-stars have taken pay cuts to make things right’

It seems as if La La Land star Emma Stone is handling the equal pay issue in Hollywood quite seriously as she recently revealed that some of her male co-stars have previously accepted pay cuts in order to level the playing field for herself and other female actresses. Last February, Stone clinched the prestigious Academy Awards for her role in La La Land, and has recently wrapped up the filming of Battle of the Sexes, in which she plays a feminist and tennis professional Billie Jean King alongside Steve Carell. In an interview, Stone told OUT magazine, “In my career so far, I’ve needed my male co-stars to take a pay cut so that I may have parity with them. And that’s something they do for me because they feel that it’s what’s right and fair. That’s something that’s also not discussed, necessarily — that our getting equal pay is going to require people to selflessly say, ‘That’s what’s fair.’ If my male costar, who has a higher quote than me but believes that we are equal and takes a pay cut so that I can match him, it changes my quote in the future and changes my life. And this is Billie Jean’s feminism, and I love it — she is equality, man: equality, equality, equality.” Even though the 28 year old actress didn’t take the names of male actors who have taken a pay cut, she paid her gratitude to those who have. “It’s not about, ‘Women are this and men are that.’ It is, ‘We are all the same, we are all equal, we all deserve the same respect and the same rights,’” she added. Her next film, Battle of the Sexes will be released in September this year.