Trending badgeTrendingPosted 1 hour agoSubscribe to BuzzFeed Daily NewsletterCaret Down17 Female Actors Who Have Spoken Out About Being Paid Less Than Their Co-Stars"I've been accredited by my industry at the highest levels, and that still didn't translate to equal compensation."by Megan LiscombSenior EditorFacebookPinterestLink 1. Nina Dobrev, who played Elena and several of her doppelgängers in The Vampire Diaries, recently revealed that she was paid less than her male co-leads Ian Somerhalder and Paul Wesley for the duration of her six-season run on the show. She said, "It was a bit of a tricky situation because my contract only said to play Elena, but I was playing multiple characters, which doubled my workload. I had to be on set for double the amount of time, I had to memorize double the amount of lines." Anadolu / Getty Images 2. In 2014, Sony was hacked, and it came out that Jennifer Lawrence was paid less than Bradley Cooper for her work on American Hustle. At the time, she said, "I would be lying if I didn't say there was an element of wanting to be liked that influenced my decision to close the deal without a real fight. I didn't want to seem 'difficult' or spoiled.'" Marc Piasecki / Getty Images Jennifer was also paid $5 million less than her Don't Look Up co-star Leonardo DiCaprio. She told Vanity Fair, "In other situations, what I have seen - and I'm sure other women in the workforce have seen as well - is that it's extremely uncomfortable to inquire about equal pay. And if you do question something that appears unequal, you're told it's not gender disparity, but they can't tell you what exactly it is." 3. Octavia Spencer revealed that when she was in negotiations for the Netflix series Self Made, based on the life of the first female Black millionaire Madame C.J. Walker, she had to get help from producer LeBron James to negotiate equal pay. Octavia said, "I think my goal is to make sure that all women of color get equal pay, and all women get equal pay. The only way to do it is to have these conversations, to talk numbers with your costars." Matt Winkelmeyer / Getty Images 4. In 2019, Michelle Williams testified before Congress about her experiences with the gender pay gap. She revealed that she was paid less than $1,000 for reshoots for the movie All the Money in the World, while her co-star Mark Wahlberg was paid $1.5 million. Michelle said, "I've been a working actress since the age of 12. I've been accredited by my industry at the highest levels, and that still didn't translate to equal compensation." For his part, Mark donated his salary to Time's Up Legal Defense Fund, which offers assistance to people who've experienced sex-based discrimination at work. Bruce Glikas / Getty Images 5. In 2017, Natalie Portman opened up about being paid three times less than her No Strings Attached co-star Ashton Kutcher. Natalie told Marie Claire U.K., "I knew and I went along with it because there's this thing with 'quotes' in Hollywood. His [quote] was three times higher than mine, so they said he should get three times more. I wasn't as pissed as I should have been. I mean, we get paid a lot, so it's hard to complain, but the disparity is crazy." She added, "Compared to men, in most professions, women make 80 cents to the dollar. In Hollywood, we are making 30 cents to the dollar." Penske Media / Getty Images 6. Jessica Chastain was reportedly paid $7 million for her role in The Martian, compared to Matt Damon's $25 million. But she later told HuffPost that she was actually paid even less. Jessica said, " I made less than a quarter of that in reality, so there is a huge wage gap in the industry." Frazer Harrison / Getty Images 7. Arden Cho, who played Kira Yukimura in the MTV series Teen Wolf, declined to return for the movie reunion due to pay disparities with her white co-stars as the show's only female series regular of color. According to Deadline, she was offered "half the per-episode salary proposed to her three counterparts, leading to her decision to pass." Alberto E. Rodriguez / Getty Images 8. In 2016, Gillian Anderson revealed that she spent three years fighting for equal pay with David Duchovny during the original 1990s run of The X-Files. Then, when the series was revived, she says she was offered half of David's pay to return. Gillian told the Daily Beast, "Even in interviews in the last few years, people have said to me, 'I can't believe that happened, how did you feel about it, that is insane.' And my response always was, 'That was then, this is now.' And then it happened again! I don't even know what to say about it." She was ultimately able to negotiate for equal pay for the series revival. Daniel Boczarski / Getty Images 9. Priyanka Chopra Jonas told BBC in 2022 that she has never received equal pay with a male co-star for her work in Bollywood films. "I've never had pay parity in Bollywood. I would get paid about 10% of the salary of my male co-actor," Priyanka said. She went on t