Bryce Dallas Howard never had a trust fund, was forced to get a job at 14

Publish date: 2024-05-13

Samuel L. Jackson on the film set of 'Life Itself'

In all honesty, I’ve never really been crazy about Bryce Dallas Howard. But the other day, I was rewatching The Help, and I couldn’t help but think to myself, “Damn, Bryce was actually pretty brave to take this role.” She was the villain, but the everyday villain, the judgy racist a–hole who hides behind her society role. Bryce didn’t play the role with much humanity – there was no effort to humanize her character at all. Which is brave. Anyway, I might need to revise my opinion about her. Bryce covers the latest issue of Redbook, and the amount of for-real-sh-t she discusses in this piece has my head spinning. This is the kind of Realness that Jennifer Lawrence could only dream of! Some highlights from Redbook:

On swapping her infamous heels for boots in Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom: “The first film for me was so much more challenging, but I didn’t realize it until I had boots on! Claire’s a girl who can totally sprint in heels, but maximum effort in boots is much easier.”

On the ‘astronomically different’ pay between male and female celebs and how even her dad Ron Howard was shocked: “I’m not a spender. I live in a three-bedroom house— in fact, we just downsized. I know that we’re privileged; we don’t have to worry about paying our rent or our medical bills. But I wish people knew that this is what the life of most successful female celebrities is. What we get paid is totally, completely, astronomically different than what male celebrities get paid. And for women of color, it’s a hundred times worse. Even my dad [Director Ron Howard] has been shocked at how expensive it is to be a woman in the industry. You’re told that it’s important to have a manager as well as an agent, and for a guy that’s not as important. That’s 20% out of your paycheck rather than 10%.”

More on the cost of being a woman in Hollywood: “As a young actress, I was told the studio would pay for me to have a stylist. Amazing. Then the stylist buys a lot of clothes because I was a size 6, not [a sample] size 2 [which could be borrowed from designers]. I assumed they were part of the budget until I get a bill for $45,000. I remember standing there shaking, like, I don’t think I have this in the bank.”

On being inspired by #TimesUp, and asking for what she’s worth: “I’ve been [wimpy] about it in the past. I didn’t want people to think I wasn’t grateful for opportunities. I also get scared off by every threat during a negotiation. They’ll say, ‘We’ll just have to find someone else,’ and I back off. You can’t do that.”

Why she’s ‘grateful’ for her mom’s somewhat ‘extreme’ parenting: “My mom grew up in poverty and was terrified that her privileged children were not going to be contributing members of society. I realize now, as a parent, that some of the things she did to follow through on teachable moments were a bit extreme. But other things, like we don’t have trust funds and were told, ‘You’re 14— you need to get a job,’ I’m so grateful for. I started working at a restaurant when I was 14, and I’d be like, I just got yelled at by a customer. OK, I survived. Those moments made me feel like a capable person, and a lot of kids I knew growing up didn’t.”

[From Redbook]

The conversation Bryce is having about where her smaller paycheck goes is just as important as the conversation about pay equality. What Bryce describes is just another form of Pink Tax – the idea that a woman has to pay more out-of-pocket just because she’s a woman. It is another form of inequality that a woman “needs” all of this other stuff (an agent, a manager, a publicist, a stylist who is buying clothes instead of borrowing). And props to Bryce for talking about it. As for the way she was raised, without a trust fund and knowing the value of work… that’s good. I don’t have a problem with any of that. And she addresses the criticism of “nepotism” with her career within the interview too, just as she acknowledges that other women have it a lot harder than her. But still, think about this: this is how Ron Howard’s daughter is treated in the industry. Imagine how hard it is for the women without her connections.

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Photos courtesy of Yu Tsai/Redbook, sent from Redbook promotional email.


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