‘Easy A’ star Patricia Clarkson reveals how she found out she was earning less than male co-stars

Patricia Clarkson remembers precisely really she recovered retired she was being underpaid arsenic an actress.

“About five, six years in, I yet asked my agent, ‘What is my antheral co-star being paid?'” she told Page Six exclusively astatine a Cinema Society screening of her caller movie, “Lilly,” earlier this week.

The Oscar nominee, 65, was shocked by his response.

“He said, ‘You don’t want to know,'” she remembered.

The “Easy A” prima instantly sprung into action.

“I started having my agents mobility everything,” she explained. “I started to request adjacent salary agelong ago. I would say, ‘Well, if [my antheral co-star’s] making this…We person similar-sized roles.'”

Clarkson remembered that producers would effort to proceed paying her little by claiming that nan antheral co-star “has much credits and I would say, ‘No, that doesn’t fly. He doesn’t person much credits.'”

The “High Art” prima said that her income accrued by 20% erstwhile she began demanding equality.

Equal salary is astatine nan bosom of her caller movie, “Lilly,” successful which she plays Lilly Ledbetter, an American activistic who fought tirelessly against salary favoritism aft discovering she’d been underpaid for decades while moving for an Alabama tyre factory.

The lawsuit made its measurement to nan Supreme Court, and nan Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act was nan very first rule that President Obama signed erstwhile he came into office.

Clarkson declined to meet Ledbetter, who died past twelvemonth astatine property 86.

“I chose not to. I had her connected specified a precocious pedestal. I was raised successful a family of 5 daughters pinch a mother who ran a city,” she said of her mother who was a New Orleans councilwoman and politician. “Lilly Ledbetter was God to america and I had to return her disconnected nan pedestal.”

The Tony nominee said that Ledbetter understood nan determination and told her successful a telephone call, “We’re going to meet astatine nan end.”

Clarkson hopes that nan movie’s powerful connection resonates pinch “every female crossed nan country.”

Hillary Clinton, Sarah Jessica Parker, Matthew Broderick, Katie Couric, Jim Parsons and John Slattery besides attended nan screening.