I ask you, how would you like your mom, your wife, your daughter to spend $100,000 to go to Harvard or some state school, and go out into the workplace, and you know she's great, and men are getting paid $200 per week more than her? Would that piss you off? What if you lost your job and you stay home crippled while she goes out, and she thinks she's going to get a good job, but someone male with the same level of experience and the same level of education gets paid more than her? You're going to get pissed. Until you walk a mile in someone else's shoes, I don't want to hear it.
Pam GrierAt the beginning, my ambition was never to break down doors. It was just to earn tuition for myself and work in an industry where women hadn't been allowed or invited. That's all I wanted to do, not thinking that I would make waves, change minds, excite people, incite people, turn on people, repulse people.
Pam GrierYes, you can have art films about the triumph of the human spirit and all of that, but you'll have it done with a big-budget icon with a $20 million salary. You'll have Julia Roberts, you'll have Robert Redford, you'll have Russell Crowe doing those films, because if they're going to cost $90 million, they're going to make that movie for a public that's very large and mainstream. They're not going to make it for three or four million black people.
Pam GrierI tell young actresses today who are looking to get into films, "First of all, you are marginalized by the color of your skin." I tell actresses, "If you're too tall, if you're too fat, you're not going to work. I don't care how talented you are." It's a business, and sex sells. Sex, action, special effects, and violence sell. Yes, you can have art films about the triumph of the human spirit and all of that, but you'll have it done with a big-budget icon with a $20 million salary.
Pam Grier