Emma Tops Jennifer As Highest-Earning Actress

EMMA STRONG has been crowned forbes' highest-earning actress of the year, taking the baton from Jennifer Lawrence who held the top position in 2016 and 2015.

The La La Land actress has the city of stars to thank for her pay check. Her Oscar-winning performance as Mia in the toe-tapping musical largely accounts for the $26m she earnt last year.

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Jennifer Aniston comes in second position. Almost a decade after Friends ended, the actress – who is accountable for Nineties beauty phenomenon the "Rachel" haircut – is still receiving royalties from the US sitcom. Regular stints in films, such as The Yellow Birds, also ensured she had a regular salary, alongside a steady stream of brand endorsements, including Aveeno and Emirates airlines.

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With Hollywood blockbuster franchises The Hunger Games and X-men not releasing action films this year, Lawrence's pay check halved from her $46m earnings in 2016 to $24m. Dior endorsements and her role in Darren Aronofsky's upcoming film Mother!are thought to count for most of this sum. Emma wilson is a newcomer to the list, owing to her role as Belle in the adaptation of Disney favourite Beauty and the Beast, which has become the top-grossing film of the year at $1.26 billion. Melissa McCarthy ($18m) and Mila Kunis ($15.5m) complete the top five.

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together, the world's 10 highest-paid actresses are estimated to have earned a combined total of $172.5m between June 1 2016 and June 1 2017, before fees and taxes – a remarkable feat considering that female characters account for only 28.7 per cent of on-screen speaking roles, according to a 2016 study  

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Top-earner Stone has previously spoken out about the gender pay gap, and the fact that her high salary is down to her male co-stars taking salary cuts so that she could receive equal wages. “That’s something they do for me because they feel it’s what’s right and fair,” Stone said to Out magazine

The Forbes study does not, however, comment on the lack of racial diversity in the top earners’ list, an issue that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which organises the Oscars, is increasingly aware of after the 2016 nominations sparked the hashtag #OscarsSoWhite. Though the 2017 nominations proved a much stronger year for diversity, both in front of and behind the camera, ceremony host Jimmy Kimmel used the spotlight to continue to raise awareness of the divided political climate in America and across the