Actress Shares 'Astounding' Chadwick Boseman Story

Actor cut his own salary to boost female co-star Sienna Miller's
By Arden Dier,  Newser Staff
Posted Sep 29, 2020 10:10 AM CDT
Boseman Cut His Own Salary to Boost Female Co-Star's
This image released by STXfilms shows, from left, JK Simmons, Chadwick Boseman and Sienna Miller in a scene from "21 Bridges."   (Matt Kennedy/STXfilms via AP)

Sienna Miller was not at all interested in returning to acting when Chadwick Boseman offered her a role opposite him in the 2019 thriller 21 Bridges, on which he served as producer. "I'd been working nonstop and I was exhausted, but then I wanted to work with him," Miller tells Empire. "He was a fan of my work, which was thrilling, because it was reciprocated from me to him, tenfold." Her admiration only increased when Boseman—who died of colon cancer last month—did the unthinkable. "I asked for a [salary] number that the studio wouldn't get to," she says. "And Chadwick ended up donating some of his salary to get me to the number I had asked for. He said that that was what I deserved to be paid."

Miller opted to share the story "because I think it's a testament to who he was." "That kind of thing just doesn't happen," she says. "It was about the most astounding thing that I've experienced." She has since told the story to other male actors "and they all go very, very quiet and go home and probably have to sit and think about things for a while," she says, referencing the pay disparity between men and women in Hollywood. "It's just unfathomable to imagine another man in that town behaving that graciously or respectfully." Empire's new issue, including other "remembrances of a king," is a tribute to the late actor, who appears on the cover. He died Aug. 28 at age 43. (Coming soon: his own statue.)

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