Forbes has released its list of Hollywood’s highest-paid actress, with “Hunger Games” star Jennifer Lawrence topping the list at $52 million, followed by Scarlett Johansson at $35.5 million and Melissa McCarthy at $23 million.
While the numbers may look impressive at first glance, in a year that has been dominated by discussions about the gender wage gap in Hollywood -- with the Sony hack revealing "American Hustle's" male stars were paid substantially more than its female stars -- the list proves once again how far we have to go.
When compared to Forbes’ list of the 2015 highest paid actors, the highest paid actress, Jennifer Lawrence, gets paid almost $30-million less than the highest paid actor, "Iron Man" Robert Downey Jr. What’s more, the 10th-highest paid actor (Mark Wahlberg) still makes more than the third-highest paid actress (Melissa McCarthy).
The list also throws Hollywood’s entrenched racial biases into stark relief, with only one non-American actress making the list — Chinese actresses Bingbing Fan — and no American women of color making the cut.
Here’s the top eighteen:
1. Jennifer Lawrence: $52,000,000
2. Scarlett Johansson: $35,500,000
3. Melissa McCarthy: $23,000,000
4. Bingbing Fan: $21,000,000
5. Jennifer Aniston: $16,500,000
6. Julia Roberts: $16,000,000
7. Angelina Jolie: $15,000,000, Reese Witherspoon: $15,000,000
9. Anne Hathaway: $12,000,000, Kristen Stewart: $12,000,000
11. Cameron Diaz: $11,000,000
12. Gwyneth Paltrow: $9,000,000
13. Meryl Streep: $8,000,000, Amanda Seyfried: $8,000,000, Sandra Bullock: $8,000,000
16. Emma Stone: $6,500,000, Mila Kunis: $6,500,000
18. Natalie Portman: $6,000,000
And here’s the list of the top eighteen men, for comparison (there's more diversity here, too):
1. Robert Downey Jr.: $80 million
2. Jackie Chan: $50 million
3. Vin Diesel: $47 million
4. Bradley Cooper: $41.5 million
5. Adam Sandler: $41 million
6. Tom Cruise: $40 million
7. Amitabh Bachchan: $33.5 million, Salman Khan: $33.5 million
9. Akshay Kumar: $32.5 million
10. Mark Wahlberg: $32 million
11. Dwayne Johnson: $31.5 million
12. Johnny Depp: $30 million
13. Leonardo Dicaprio: $29 million
14. Channing Tatum: $29 million
15. Chris Hemsworth: $27 million, Daniel Craig: $27 million
17. Matthew McConaughey: $26.5 million
18. Shah Rukh Khan: $26 million
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