Women may be making less than men much of the time in Hollywood, but Jennifer Lawrence beat the boys when Forbes looked at the 2016 Oscar nominees’ earnings from June 2014 to June 2015. Compared to all nominees in the Best Actor/Actress and Best Supporting Actor/Actress categories, the one-time Academy Award winner emerged as the highest-paid, bringing in an estimated $52 million during the qualifying period.
Lawrence was the only actress truly in contention. Neither her fellow Best Actress nominees (Cate Blanchett, Saoirse Ronan, Brie Larson, and Charlotte Rampling) nor anyone from the Best Supporting Actress field (Rooney Mara, Alicia Vikander, Kate Winslet, Rachel McAdams, and Jennifer Jason Leigh) earned more than $6 million over the year. Lawrence’s massive paychecks came from starring in the latest Hunger Games film, Mockingjay — Part 2, as well as upfront compensation for her role in Joy and her contract with Dior.
Lawrence also topped Forbes’ ranking of the year’s highest-paid actresses and out-earned nearly all of the men on the publication’s list of highest-paid actors as well. Only Robert Downey Jr. made more; the actor brought in an estimated $80 million, thanks in large part to the Marvel blockbuster Avengers: Age of Ultron.
The ranking only included two Best Actor nominees: Leonardo DiCaprio (in 13th place, with $29 million) and Matt Damon (in 20th place, with $25 million). Their fellow contenders (Bryan Cranston, Michael Fassbender, and Eddie Redmayne) were left off the list, along with all of the Best Supporting Actor nominees (Christian Bale, Tom Hardy, Mark Ruffalo, Mark Rylance, and Sylvester Stallone).
Over the past several years, Lawrence has become something of a perpetual Oscar nominee, racking up her fourth nod with 2015’s Joy. At 25, the actress, who won Best Actress with 2012’s Silver Lining’s Playbook, is the youngest person to have accumulated so many nominations. If she wins an Academy Award at this year’s show, it’ll mark the first time the highest-paid actress in the world has won an Oscar in the same year.
