When Fox approached Gillian Anderson about reprising her role of Dana Scully on its revival of The X-Files, the actress was only offered half the pay that her co-star, David Duchovny, was set to receive.
Anderson recently spoke about the pay disparity offer in several interviews, although she eventually received the same amount of money for the new series as her male co-star. However, she had to fight for it.
"There's no point in dealing with my side [first] because, as usual, they come to me with half of what they want to offer David," said Anderson to The Hollywood Reporter.
Anderson elaborated in an interview with The Daily Beast.
"I'm surprised that more [interviewers] haven't brought that up because it's the truth," said Anderson. "Especially in this climate of women talking about the reality of [unequal pay] in this business, I think it's important that it gets heard and voiced. It was shocking to me, given all the work that I had done in the past to get us to be paid fairly. I worked really hard toward that and finally got somewhere with it.
"Even in interviews in the last few years, people have said to me, 'I can't believe that happened, how did you feel about it, that is insane.' And my response always was, 'That was then, this is now.' And then it happened again! I don't even know what to say about it."
When The X-Files premiered in 1993, Duchovny was a more well-known actor than Anderson, which explains why he got paid more then. However, Anderson's performance on the series quickly made her more of a co-lead, rather than a "sidekick." Because of that, Anderson fought for equal pay on the series, which she eventually received.
It's perplexing as to why she would receive a lower initial offer for the revival, considering that the series would not work with just Duchovny alone. She is one half of the Scully and Mulder team that fans of the series love and deserves to make as much as him. Many might even argue that she's become a bigger star than Duchovny since then.
However, Anderson fought for equal pay and eventually received it, and the result is that The X-Files returns to Fox on Jan. 24.
