Ruth Wilson has revealed that she believes she is paid less than her co-star Dominic West in The Affair.


The actress, who won a Golden Globe for her portrayal of the “other woman” Alison in the acclaimed drama, has called for equal pay and said that West “definitely gets more” money than her for the Showtime series.

In an interview in this week’s issue of Radio Times, Wilson said: “I definitely get less money than a male in my situation would. Definitely.”

On whether she is paid less than West, she replied: “Yeah. I think so. Certainly when I signed up to that project, I would have got paid less. Then they [the producers] might argue, ‘Well, he’s already done a major American TV show [The Wire] so he’s already got a level.’ But even after a Golden Globe I’m not going to be on parity.

“So he definitely gets more than me. I mean, I don’t know what the figure is, but I’m sure he does.”

Wilson said she hadn’t spoken to West about the matter of equal pay. “It’s sort of funny,” she said. “It’s quite hard to bring that up in a way. But it needs to be an open discussion and men need to help us out.

“I don’t want more money, I just want equal money. Which means men have to take less.”

Wilson’s latest role is in the movie Dark River, and she will appear in series four of The Affair later this year.


Read the full interview with Ruth Wilson in the new issue of Radio Times magazine, on sale from Tuesday