Priyanka Chopra Jonas, who has been acting for two decades, has revealed her new Amazon Prime Video series Citadel represents the first time she’s had pay parity with a male co-star. PeeCee stars with Richard Madden in the new series, which launches next month. The actress was at Austin’s South by Southwest Festival in a keynote conversation with Amazon Studios head Jennifer Salke about her upcoming action spy series for the streamer. She said on stage that she wondered whether the pay parity came out of the fact that Amazon Studios is led by a woman.
"I might get into trouble for [saying this], depends on who’s watching. I’ve been working in the entertainment industry for now 22 years, and I have done about almost 70-plus features and two TV shows. But when I did Citadel, it was the first time in my career that I had pay parity. I’m laughing about this, but it’s kind of nuts," Priyanka said.
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The actor further said, “I put in the same amount of investment and work, but I get paid much less. But the ease in which Amazon Studios said, ‘That’s what you deserve, you are co-leads, that’s just fair,’ and I was like, ‘You’re right, it’s fair.’ And I wonder: Did that happen because there are very few female decision-makers in Hollywood? Would that have been a different conversation if a woman didn’t make that decision? Those are not conversations that happened very easily." To which, Jennifer Salke replied that she can’t speak to what would have happened if she wasn’t in charge, yet praised her executive team. She said she has 'great male and female allies' at her company.
The first season of the Russo Brothers produced show will stream on the OTT giant on April 28. It will begin with the first two episodes and the remaining 4 will premiere weekly till May 26.
