Jennifer Lawrence, former E! News host Catt Sadler, and documentary filmmaker Stephanie Soechtig are working on a #MeToo-themed docuseries. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the project will “take a deep dive into issues facing women today” and is inspired by #MeToo, Time’s Up, and Hollywood’s gender pay gap. Lawrence and Sadler are developing the series together and Soechtig (“Under the Gun,” “Fed Up”) has been tapped to direct.
Lawrence, Sadler, and their team are “looking to fast track the docuseries” once they find a distributor.
Lawrence first mentioned the project while promoting “Red Sparrow” last week. The Oscar-winning actress let slip that she and Sadler are working together but didn’t offer any other details. THR learned more via an unnamed source.
The fight for equal pay is something that is near and dear to both Sadler and Lawrence. In December Sadler left E! after 12 years, citing “a massive disparity” in her and co-host Jason Kennedy’s salaries. “The gender pay gap is shrinking, although admittedly we have a long way to go,” she wrote on her website. “And well, I learned this first hand. My team and I asked for what I know I deserve and were denied repeatedly.”
In the wake of her departure from E! Sadler has become close with Lawrence. “Jennifer Lawrence has become a friend of mine — really, a hero of mine,” Sadler said. “Long before my own experiences, her voice has been an empowering one and one I’ve always admired. To have her in my corner is hard to put into words, to be honest.”
Lawrence has long been been outspoken about the industry’s persistent pay disparity and her personal experiences with the issue. The 2014 Sony leak revealed Lawrence and Amy Adams had been paid far less for “American Hustle” than their male co-stars. In a 2015 essay for Lenny Letter, Lawrence wrote, “When the Sony hack happened and I found out how much less I was being paid than the lucky people with dicks, I didn’t get mad at Sony. I got mad at myself. I failed as a negotiator because I gave up early.”
“The Hunger Games” star recently spoke about her “American Hustle” pay again on “60 Minutes.” Asked why she blamed herself for that particular pay disparity, Lawrence said, “Because I didn’t fight hard enough. It was my own mentality that led me to believe that I didn’t deserve to be paid equally.” She emphasized that she learned an important lesson from the incident and won’t underestimate her own value again. “I feel I know my worth, and I feel like I work to keep it that way,” Lawrence remarked, as per Deadline.
When asked about Harvey Weinstein, and whether she had ever been subjected to the fallen mogul’s predatory behavior, Lawrence said that she wasn’t, but she’s outraged on behalf of all the women he has harassed and assaulted. “What he was did was criminal and deplorable and when it came out and I heard about it, I wanted to kill him,” she revealed. “The way that he destroyed so many women’s lives. I want to see him in jail.”
“Red Sparrow,” which sees Lawrence playing an ex-ballerina forced to become a spy, opens Friday, March 2. November’s “X-Men: Dark Phoenix” and “Bad Blood,” a biopic about Theranos founder/CEO Elizabeth Holmes, are among her upcoming projects.
