Kaiser covered the embarrassing Sony Hack news for much of the past week. This scandal isn’t even close to finished, and it’s making for some very revealing gossip. Many new details have surfaced about Jennifer Lawrence in leaked emails. To summarize: (1) Her email handle (as Lorde recently hinted) contains the word “peanutbutt”; (2) JLaw and Amy Adams were compensated less than Jeremy Renner, Christian Bale, and Bradley Cooper in American Hustle; (3) Makers of the Cleopatra biopic considered replacing Angelina Jolie with JLaw. What?
The first detail isn’t surprising. The second is maddening because (as these emails freely admit) JLaw was the biggest name in the Hustle cast. Jennifer was paid less than her male co-stars because she’s a woman. The third detail confuses me. Can you see JLaw playing Cleopatra? Let’s jump into this cluster:
Email correspondences from the Sony hack reveal that Jennifer Lawrence was compensated less than her male co-stars, compounding the studio’s gender pay gap problems.
One of the most prominent A-list presences in the emails ripped from Sony’s servers by the hacking collective Guardians of Peace is none other than Jennifer Lawrence (who is, sadly, no stranger to hacking herself).
Lawrence and her fabulous email handle (peanutbutt) make several cameos in the leak, including numerous pleasant exchanges with Amy Pascal, co-chairman of Sony Pictures Entertainment, over her dazzling turn in American Hustle, which was co-financed by Sony arm Columbia Pictures. There’s also an interesting email exchange between Pascal and Brian Helgeland, screenwriter of the planned Cleopatra biopic, with Pascal suggesting that Helgeland dump Angelina Jolie in favor of Lawrence–an idea Helgeland says he’s given some thought to.
[T]he most troubling reveal concerning Lawrence is in regard to her financial compensation with hacked emails revealing that the Hunger Games star was compensated less than her male co-stars on American Hustle.
In an email dated December 5, 2013, Andrew Gumpert, President of Business Affairs and Administration for Columbia Pictures, wrote to Pascal and Doug Belgrad, President of SPE Motion Picture Group, about the “points”–or back-end compensation–that each actor was to receive on Hustle. (“Megan” is Megan Ellison, head of Annapurna Pictures, which co-financed Hustle.)
“Got a steve warren/gretchen rush call that it’s unfair the male actors get 9% in the pool and jennifer is only at 7pts,” the email reads. “You may recall Jennifer was at 5 (amy was and is at 7) and WE anted in 2 extra points for Jennifer to get her up to 7. If anyone needs to top jennifer up it’s megan. BUT I think amy and Jennifer are tied so upping JL, ups AA.”
Gumpert added, “The current talent deals are: O’Russell: 9%; Cooper: 9%; Bale: 9%; Renner: 9%; Lawrence: 7%; Adams: 7%.”
Pascal’s email response to the news of Lawrence making less than her male colleagues–despite the fact that she’s far and away the biggest star of the picture, since Hustle was green-lit after The Hunger Games–was: “there is truth here.”
[From The Daily Beast]
The Beast goes on to reveal how the gender disparity of these A-lister salaries is reflective of Sony staffers in general. One example: the two co-presidents (one male, one female) of production at Columbia Pictures do the same exact job. The man rakes in $2.4 million salary; the female draws $1.5 million in comparison. And so on down the corporate ladder.
There’s one last JLaw detail (so far) from the Sony hack. Amy Pascal and director/producer Ivan Reitman sent several back and forth emails about casting the all-female Ghostbusters III. Jennifer’s name popped up on the list, along with Emma Stone, Melissa McCarthy, and Lizzy Caplan. Oh, rly?
Photos courtesy of Columbia Pictures/Sony & WENN
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