Daniel Radcliffe would like to personally thank Jennifer Lawrence for opening his eyes to the gender pay gap in Hollywood.
In a recent interview with Australia's The Daily Telegraph, Radcliffe explained that before Lawrence's essay on the topic for Lenny Letter, he didn't know that wage disparity was, like, a thing in the industry. And yes, the Harry Potter star admitted that he was rather naive about the whole thing.
“I’m incredibly glad [gender equality] has come up," Radcliffe said, "because I had just fucking naively thought this was not an issue anymore because how can this still be happening?”
Radcliffe seems to be taking that particular question very seriously since reading that Lawrence was paid far less than her male co-stars on American Hustle. He told the Telegraph, “The thing I can’t help but think is: ‘Who? Who’s doing that? What guy is sitting in a studio somewhere thinking, ‘Let’s fuck the girls out of some money?’”
Hollywood needs to "step up," the actor went on to explain. "Especially if we want to pride ourselves on being a liberal, progressive industry then you can’t be doing that."
He even laid out a plan for how Hollywood can combat this issue, which he said is "nuts to me." And no, his plan unfortunately doesn't involve an invisibility cloak. "I feel like there’s such a wealth of amazing actresses in the world right now," he said. "And we’ve got to start writing better parts for them and paying them equally.”
Someone needs to put Radcliffe in touch with his old pal Emma Watson, so she can get him involved in her HeForShe campaign, which looks for men to stand with women in the battle for equal rights. After seeing Radcliffe's Blackalicious freestyle on The Tonight Show, we'd certainly love to see him rap about gender equality just like Lin-Manuel Miranda.
Maybe Watson can also sign Radcliffe up for her feminist book club, since it seems he has some reading to do.
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