Robin Wright's career spans The Princess Bride, Forrest Gump, and Wonder Woman, to name a few of her blockbusters, but her talent truly radiated in her role as Claire Underwood in the Netflix series House of Cards. The actress may have won an award for her House of Cards performance, but it was her negotiation skills that had the biggest pay off.
Wonder Woman was Robin Wright's highest grossing film, which brought in over $400 million. Wright's Wonder Woman salary was not made public, but because she was a co-star, she would have only received a fraction of that revenue. Likewise, Forest Gump brought in over $330 million, but Robin Wright split that revenue with Tom Hanks, Gary Sinise and several other co-stars. Although she has certainly earned a great deal of money and notoriety in her film career, Robin Wright found her greatest success on Netflix.
Robin Wright's net worth is approximately $65 million, and most of that income was earned from her Netflix career. Her House of Cards performance earned her five Emmy nominations. She secured the 2014 Golden Globe award for best actress in a TV drama, becoming the first person to win a Golden Globe for an original series on a streaming platform. When Netflix made her salary public, Robin Wright used that information to negotiate better pay.
According to Marie Claire, Wright's House of Cards co-star, Kevin Spacey, was making $500,000/episode to her $420,000/episode, so Robin Wright began researching. Wright explained, "I was looking at the statistics and Claire Underwood's character was more popular than [Frank's] for a period of time. So I capitalized on it. I was like, 'You better pay me or I’m going to go public.'" Robin Wright decided to do her homework and fight for what her role was truly worth. She concluded, "It was the perfect paradigm. There are very few films or TV shows where the male, the patriarch, and the matriarch are equal. And they are in House of Cards."
Robin Wright's crusade paid off. Complex ranked Wright among the 20 highest paid actors in Hollywood for 2016/2017. The exact amount of her final season on House of Cards is estimated to be worth $9 million. When that amount is combined with her earlier salary from the first five seasons of the show, the total estimate of what she made on House of Cards comes to $34 million. Thus over half of the actress' net worth came from her House of Cards negotiations. Although she had a massive payday, Robin Wright has not kept her wealth to herself. The actress is known for her generous philanthropy as well.
When Robin Wright visited the Congo and saw the plight of women in a developing country, she asked them how she could help. Vogue reported, "Wright asked the matriarchs to tell her the most important thing they needed. 'All of them said: 'We need you to be our voice', she shares. 'Now, I use it.' " Robin Wright used creativity, and her bank account, to partner with a designer to create Pour Les Femmes, a sleepwear company that donates proceeds to the Congo.
Robin Wright is truly a Hollywood trailblazer. She was one of the first actresses to earn millions from an original Netflix series. She knew her talent and her worth, and negotiated an equal salary to match her male co-star. Wright then used her wealth to empower women in a developing country, she is an example of what a woman in Hollywood can achieve if she refuses to compromise.