Chadwick Boseman Gave Up Some of His ‘21 Bridges’ Salary to Boost Sienna Miller’s Pay

Sienna Miller is sharing some memories to honor her late costar, Chadwick Boseman. The actress, who starred with alongside Boseman in last year’s 21 Bridges, revealed in an interview with the U.K.’s Empire Magazine that the actor took money from his own salary to give Miller her asking price on the film, Deadline reports.

Boseman, who was also a producer on the $33 million project, intervened when the studio would not agree to the number Miller requested, she told the magazine. “This was a pretty big budget film,” Miller recalled, “and I know that everybody understands about the pay disparity in Hollywood, but I asked for a number that the studio wouldn’t get to.

“And because I was hesitant to go back to work and my daughter was starting school and it was an inconvenient time, I said, ‘I’ll do it if I’m compensated in the right way.’ And Chadwick ended up donating some of his salary to get me to the number that I had asked for. He said that that was what I deserved to be paid.”

Miller starred in the spy thriller as Frankie Burns, a narcotics detective who teams up with Boseman’s Andre Davis to catch the criminals who gunned down eight cops during a robbery. Miller told Empire that it was Boseman who convinced her to join the project. “He was a fan of my work, which was thrilling, because it was reciprocated from me to him, tenfold,” she said. When Boseman approached her about the project, Miller wasn’t looking to work at the time. “I’d been working non-stop and I was exhausted,” she said, “but then I wanted to work with him.”

When she did agree to the project and later got the salary she asked for thanks to Boseman, she said called his act of generosity “about the most astounding thing” she’s ever experienced. “That kind of thing just doesn’t happen,” Miller added. “He said, ‘You’re getting paid what you deserve, and what you’re worth.’ It’s just unfathomable to imagine another man in that town behaving that graciously or respectfully.

“In the aftermath of this I’ve told other male actor friends of mine that story and they all go very very quiet and go home and probably have to sit and think about things for a while. But there was no showiness, it was, ‘Of course I’ll get you to that number, because that’s what you should be paid.'”

Boseman died at age 43 last month after a years-long battle with colon cancer. He rose to fame with the starring role in 2018’s Black Panther, and had completed his final project, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, at the time of his death.

Where to watch 21 Bridges