Julie Delpy Insisted Upon Equal Pay With Ethan Hawke Before Agreeing To Do ‘Before Midnight’

Michelle Williams recently delivered a vigorous Emmys speech to shine light on the equal-pay movement. She was certainly in the position to deliver those words, especially after she received 1,500 times less pay than Mark Wahlberg for All The Money In The World reshoots. Williams isn’t the only one speaking out on the issue. Laura Dern recently talked with us for Equal Pay Day, and Claire Foy, sadly, expressed non-surprise after being paid less (to play The Queen) than the male lead, Matt Smith, on The Crown. Now Julie Delpy’s picking up the issue in an interview with Variety, in which she tells Guy Lodge that she dragged her feet on signing up for Richard Linklater’s final Before trilogy installment until she got as much money as Ethan Hawke did.

Delpy discussed how she’s occasionally been considered difficult for speaking her mind, and she’s still not sure that the “industry is ready to hear a 50-year-old woman expressing herself.” However, she revealed while participating in the Woman of Impact Symposium that the trilogy didn’t start out with gender parity in mind. As Delpy stated, she received “maybe a tenth” of what Hawke earned for Before Sunrise and then “half” of his salary for Before Sunset (even though she co-wrote the script alongside Hawke.) By the time the third movie rolled around, Delpy had enough: “I said, ‘Listen, guys, if I’m not paid the same, I’m not doing it.'”

Well, I think we know what the outcome to that story was, given that Before Midnight greeted theaters in 2013, years before Equal Pay became the issue that it (fortunately) is today. As far as a fourth installment to Linklater’s series, however, Delpy tried to ward off any suggestion that there’s more story to tell:

“I think we’re done now with (the Before trilogy) but we went back to it every nine years. It was an interesting study of a 20-year-old falling in love, a 30-year-old falling in love again and then at early 40’s how to sustain that love. It’s really about the relationship.”

Delpy’s currently promoting My Zoe, which promises to blend sci-fi into a family drama and is one of 55 woman-directed movies currently screening at the Woman of Impact Symposium. Watch her Variety interview below.

(Via Variety)