Maggie Gyllenhaal got a pay rise for 'The Deuce' so she would have parity with James Franco.
Maggie Gyllenhaal
The 41-year-old actress insisted that "we live in a misogynistic world" and although male actors should help the issue of the pay gap by taking pay cuts, there are "other ways to help".
The 'Dark Knight' star went on to explain that HBO attempted to tackle the problem by giving her more money to play prostitute-turned-porn-director Eileen Merrell in the gritty drama series - so it would match the salary of her co-star James, 40, who plays twin brothers, Vincent and Frankie Martino.
In an interview with the Guardian newspaper, she said: "We live in a masculine world and in America - especially very recently - as much as we would like to believe otherwise, it's a misogynistic world."
When asked whether male actors should offer to take pay cuts to help tackle the problem, she said: "Mmm, yes, but there are lots of different ways to help.
"HBO, for example, gave me a raise for 'The Deuce' so that I would have pay parity with James Franco. If you have a big company with power and money like HBO, making a decision like that makes it very difficult for other competing companies not to do the same."
The 'Secretary' star also said that her new film 'The Kindergarten Teacher' - which follows a pre-school teacher who becomes obsessed with one of her students - was underfunded, however, having the group of women at the helm "made it happen".
She added: "The money is lagging. That always happens - artists and culture move faster than the money, always. We did not have enough money making 'The Kindergarten Teacher', not by half, and yet we were a group of women and we were like, 'OK, we never expected to have enough money, we're used to that, this is how we do it', and we just made it happen."
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