Unlike her American Hustle co-star Jennifer Lawrence, Amy Adams wasn’t at all surprised when the Sony hacks uncovered a striking pay gap between the film’s female and male leads. In fact, she was aware when signing on to the project that she’d be taking a pay cut for her Oscar-nominated role. She tells British GQ, “I knew I was being paid less and I still agreed to do it because the option comes down to do it or don’t do it. So you just have to decide if it’s worth it for you. It doesn’t mean I liked it.” Now that pay inequity is the talk of Hollywood, Adams is none too thrilled that certain people have criticized women for the ways they do and don’t negotiate their salaries: “I didn’t speak about it [making less] before and I’m probably not going to speak about it forever, because I disagreed with … not Jennifer per se, but people who had opinions on how women should go about negotiating. The truth is we hire people to negotiate on our behalf, men and women.”
And with that revelation out of the way, Adams is also sharing what a blast she had filming American Hustle. “I was really just devastated on set,” she says of director David O. Russell bringing her to tears. “I mean, not every day, but most. Jennifer [Lawrence] doesn’t take any of it on. She’s Teflon. And I am not Teflon. But I also don’t like to see other people treated badly. It’s not ok with me. Life to me is more important than movies. It really taught me how to separate work and home. Because I was like, I cannot bring this experience home with me to my daughter.” Adams doesn’t say if Bale, Cooper, and Renner also all had to be Teflon Dons to endure Russell, but, uh, it’s safe to assume not.
