Poldark actress Eleanor Tomlinson "pretty upset" to be paid less than co-star Aidan Turner
Eleanor Tomlinson, who plays Demelza Poldark in Poldark is paid less than Aidan Turner. She said she would be "pretty upset" if her and co-star Aidan Turner were not paid the same.
Aidan Turner, an Irish actor plays Ross Poldark in the BBC adaptation of The Poldark Novels by Winston Graham.
According to the producers of the series, Eleanor is paid less because she has less screen time.
Mammoth Screen defended the decision, saying Turner had "significantly more screen time than any other character".
The issue of pay gap on Poldark, came up during Tomlinson's interview with Red Magazine.
When asked if she was paid the the same as her co-star, she said "my guess is no".
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According to her, Turner was a big name because of his roles in the film The Hobbit and several other BBC drama in 2015 but they are now both its leads and should be paid the same salary.
During the interview she said, “And while at the beginning that might have been OK, he was a bigger star than me, now I don’t think so. We’re equal leads of the show, so I’d be pretty upset if the gap hadn’t closed.”
According to last year's data, women are paid on average 10.7% less than men at the BBC, following the revelation that only a third of its 96 top earners were women and the top seven were all men.
The Channel 4 News presenter Jon Snow took a voluntary 25% cut to his salary in an attempt to help close the gender pay gap at the broadcaster. It has a 28.6% gender pay gap, significantly higher than ITV’s 11.9% and ITN’s 18.2%
Poldark’s cast is paid by the show’s independent production company, rather than the BBC, like many of the channel’s stars.
Tomlinson said she and Turner are great friends “although we do row”.
“(We row about) everything – usually our characters,” she said. “We’re both ridiculously protective of them and squabble like an old married couple.
“Usually it’s one of us saying that our character wouldn’t behave a certain way. Aidan loves everything being his [character’s]. But then he loves to wind me up.”
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First published: 25 May 2018, 13:36 IST