Eleanor Tomlinson Calls For 'Poldark' Pay Equality With Aidan Turner

The issue of the gender pay gap in the entertainment industry has now focussed on the BBC’s flagship drama ‘Poldark’, with its star Eleanor Tomlinson calling for equal pay with the show’s lead, Aidan Turner.

In a new interview with Red magazine this week, the 26 year old English star, who plays Turner’s on-screen wife Demelza Poldark in the highly successful drama, said she’d be “pretty upset” if she discovered she was being paid less than Turner.

Asked whether she thought she was paid the same as Turner, Tomlinson told Red magazine: “My guess is no. And while at the beginning that might have been okay, 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.”

Tomlinson’s comments come soon after a similar controversy over gender pay disparities hit the successful Netflix series ‘The Crown’, with it emerging that its male lead, Matt Smith, was being paid more than his co-star Claire Foy.

The show’s producers, Mammoth Screen, confirmed Tomlinson’s suspicions in a subsequent statement on Wednesday (May 23rd), defending paying Turner more than her on the grounds that he spends far more time on-screen than any other character in the drama.

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“Whilst we can’t and won’t disclose the details, we do pay Aidan Turner more for playing Ross Poldark as throughout all series Ross has significantly more screen time than any other character,” their statement read.

The fourth series of ‘Poldark’ is expected to air in the early summer of 2018, though no official broadcast date has been nailed down yet.

Speaking about on-screen chemistry elsewhere in the interview, Tomlinson revealed that they often “row” about “everything - usually our characters.”

“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.”

More: ‘The Crown’s producers apologise to Claire Foy and Matt Smith over pay disparity