In 1999, factory worker Lilly Ledbetter sued Goodyear (as in the tires) for sex discrimination when she learned that she had been paid significantly less than her male counterparts, despite having worked for the company for nearly 20 years. Ledbetter won her case, but then the decision was reversed on appeal, and so Ledbetter took it all the way to the Supreme Court… who in 2007 sided with Goodyear instead of Ledbetter because something something she didn’t originally sue within 180 days. Like they say, justice is in the deadlines. There was at last a victory though: Justice RBG wrote and read from the bench a blistering dissent, and two years later the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 became the first piece of legislation President Obama signed into law. Thanks for detouring with me down the lane of recent American history, all to set up that the consummate Patricia Clarkson is playing this American shero in a biopic. Lilly is out now, and at a recent screening Patricia shared her own history of demanding equal pay as an actress since “a long time ago.”

Patricia Clarkson remembers exactly how she found out she was being underpaid as an actress.

“About five, six years in, I finally asked my agent, ‘What is my male co-star being paid?’” she told Page Six exclusively at a Cinema Society screening of her new movie, “Lilly,” earlier this week.

The Oscar nominee, 65, was shocked by his response.

“He said, ‘You don’t want to know,’” she remembered.

The “Easy A” star immediately sprung into action.

“I started having my agents question everything,” she explained. “I started to demand equal pay long ago. I would say, ‘Well, if [my male co-star’s] making this… We have similar-sized roles.’”

Clarkson remembered that producers would attempt to continue paying her less by claiming that the male co-star “has more credits and I would say, ‘No, that doesn’t fly. He doesn’t have more credits.’”

The “High Art” star said that her income increased by 20% once she began demanding equality.

Equal pay is at the heart of her new movie, “Lilly,” in which she plays Lilly Ledbetter, an American activist who fought tirelessly against pay discrimination after discovering she’d been underpaid for decades while working for an Alabama tire factory.

The case made its way to the Supreme Court, and the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act was the very first law that President Obama signed when he came into office.

Clarkson declined to meet Ledbetter, who died last year at age 86.

“I chose not to. I had her on such a high pedestal. I was raised in a family of five daughters with a mother who ran a city,” she said of her mother who was a New Orleans councilwoman and politician. “Lilly Ledbetter was God to us and I had to take her off the pedestal.”

The Tony nominee said that Ledbetter understood the decision and told her in a phone call, “We’re going to meet at the end.”

Clarkson hopes that the movie’s powerful message resonates with “every woman across the country.”

[From Page Six]

Go, Patricia! In an industry where newcomers are bombarded with sentiments of, “You’re lucky to be here,” that took a phenomenal, healthy sense of self-worth for Patricia to initiate that conversation with her agent. And to get her agent to have her back on this! Impressive, but not exactly surprising from Ms. Clarkson, who we all know is having one great sexy-ass life. And now pay disparity is solved! (She jokes, while screaming into a pillow.) One thing I wonder, though, is if Patricia regrets not meeting Lilly Ledbetter before she passed? Anyway, I have yet to see Patricia Clarkson deliver a bad performance, and only wish she worked more. The movie also features great theater actors John Benjamin Hickey as Lilly’s husband, and Thomas Sadoski (he’s married to Amanda Seyfried!) as her lawyer. This is exactly the kind of legal-world film my Law Professor father would have enjoyed, so I will view it in his honor.

PS — I love the clutch Patricia carried to the Century City screening, it’s embroidered with the words “Women of the world, unite!”

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Photos credit: MediaPunch/Backgrid, James Warren/Bang Showbiz/Avalon, Cat Morley/Avalon, Getty