WASHINGTON — Actress Michelle Williams said she’s finally being paid as much as her male co-stars — and getting handshakes instead of creepy hugs.
Williams, who made less than $1,000 to her co-star Mark Wahlberg’s $1.5 million for reshoots of “All the Money in the World,” told a rally on Capitol Hill Tuesday that things were looking up.
“Rather than being grasped too tightly or hugged for too long at the morning meeting my hand was shaken and I was looked squarely in the eye as I was welcome to my Monday morning,” the former “Dawson’s Creek” actress said.
“I realized this is actually what it feels like to be on the inside, to be one of the boys.”
“And on the job I completed two weeks ago — let me tell you something — I was paid equally as my male co-stars,” Williams said, earning applause.
Williams appeared alongside House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and other Democratic female lawmakers for “Equal Pay Day,” the day American women finally catch up to the earnings of their male peers last year.
The actress recalled what happened in January 2018 when USA Today reported the pay disparity between her and Wahlberg.
“And guess what? No one cared. This came as no surprise to me,” she said.
“It simply reinforced my life long belief that equality is not an inalienable right. And that women would always be working just as hard for less money while shouldering more responsibility in their homes,” she said. “If it’s this way for me — a white woman in a glamorized — how were my sisters suffering across their professions?”
Eventually, the glaring pay gap received widespread condemnation, in part because fellow actress Jessica Chastain used her social media presence to point it out.
The ascendance of the Me Too movement and Time’s Up also helped.
Wahlberg and his talent agency William Morris Endeavor — which also represented Williams — donated a combined $2 million to Times Up’s Legal Defense Fund in Williams’ name.
Last week the House passed the Paycheck Fairness Act, which is now headed to the Senate.