Benedict Cumberbatch says he won't take on projects that don't pay men and women equally

By Sam Barsanti | May 15, 2018 | 2:40am

Aux Features Film

As reported by the Radio Times, Benedict Cumberbatch has announced that he’s going to start taking a more active stance in the fight for men and women working in film and TV to receive equal pay. Cumberbatch said that he will “boycott projects that do not pay women the same amount as their male co-stars,” and he thinks other actors should do the same. “Equal pay and a place at the table are the central tenets of feminism,” he said, adding, “Ask what women are being paid and say: ‘if she’s not paid the same as the men, I’m not doing it.’”

Cumberbatch also noted that he’ll also be pushing for this with his new production company, SunnyMarch, saying that he and his partner Adam Ackland are the only men in the organization. He pointed out that he intends to use his famous (and exceedingly British) name to get attention from investors, and he’ll use that attention to support “a raft of female projects”—including his project, “a female story with a female lens about motherhood in a time of environmental disaster.”