Ted Sarandos says last year’s “The Crown” pay gap dispute made Netflix change their casting methods.
Sarandos, the streaming service’s content chief, appeared at Makers Conference in California and discussed the uproar. But as he revealed, Netflix bought the series from Sony Pictures Television so they didn’t actually decide on star Claire Foy’s wage.
Later, it was revealed to be significantly lower than that of co-star Matt Smith.
“It’s really a complicated thing when you’re breaking new talent in a new show,” Sarandos told moderator Willow Bay. “The show turned out to be an enormous show for Netflix and it was an incredible launching pad for Claire Foy’s career. I can’t comment on her salary, I wasn’t in charge of it. But there was a disparity. What it did for us is, it had us go back and look at all of our productions and all of our productions that were being run by third parties, to make sure none of those disparities existed.”
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And now, Netflix has new guidelines.
“We do,” he said. Although, “it’s in practice, it isn’t a plaque we hang on the wall. It’s something that we do every day. I think that the Claire/Matt issue, as complicated as it is, pointed to a bigger problem throughout the industry. We were able to find a couple of other ones we were able to adjust.”
Netflix will drop the third season of “The Crown” later this year.
