Not Even Winning An Oscar Could Save Patricia Arquette From Pay Inequality

The actress "asked for the same pay structure" as a man and was told no.

Winning an Oscar may have upped Patricia Arquette's prestige factor, but it didn't give her any additional bargaining power when it came to negotiating a back-end deal with a film executive recently.

Arquette described facing the gendered situation in a conversation with HuffPost Live on Thursday:

I’ve walked away from jobs -- I walked away from one after the Oscar. It was another art movie, and we weren’t getting paid really much up-front. The idea was if this movie’s a success … we’ll all make some money. ... But when I asked for the same pay structure on the back-end as the male -- not the same amount, even, because he was in more of the movie -- the same structure, they didn’t want to give it to me.

It wasn't hard for Arquette to pass up the acting opportunity once the sexist double-standard came to light.

"[It] was like, 'Oh, I get it-- you don't want to pay me anything up-front, and if your movie makes a bunch of money, you don't want to pay me either,'" she recounted. "[It made me feel like] no, I actually don't believe in this artistic project with you anymore. I don't want to work with you."

Watch more from Patricia Arquette's HuffPost Live conversation here.

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