Denzel Washington took pay cut

Denzel Washington has told how he took a pay cut for his new film Flight and predicted other stars will have to follow suit.

The actor, 57, plays an alcoholic pilot flying under the influence in the film, made for a relatively low budget of 30 million dollars.

He told AwardsLine: "The studio wanted to do it for a price, and we ended up with (about) 28 million dollars, and (director) Robert Zemeckis made it look like 100 million dollars, especially the plane sequence. So he and I threw our money back in the pot, took a tenth of our salaries."

He said: "What I think has changed a bit is maybe five or six years ago they might have given us a 50 million dollar, 60 million dollar budget, or more, but nowadays the studios are tightening their belts... and neither of us wanted to walk away from it, so we did it."

Denzel predicted: "The actors, at least the big actors, will have to make a decision: do you want to cut your fee and do something good, or are you just in it for the (20 million dollar salary)?"

Flight also stars Don Cheadle, Melissa Leo, Bruce Greenwood and Kelly Reilly.