Emmy Rossum is looking back at fighting for equal pay on Shameless.

When the Showtime series first premiered in 2011, the 39-year-old actress, who played Fiona Gallagher, understood the pay difference between herself and co-star William H. Macy as he was No. 1 on the call sheet.

While appearing on the Wednesday (July 8) episode of Call Her Daddy, Emmy said that by season three, her lawyers felt that she “had the receipts” to ask to be paid equally to William, 76. Her request was ultimately denied.

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During contract negotiations for season eight, Emmy said that she was ready bring up the equal pay conversation again. By that point, she had directed several episodes, which she believed would strength her argument to get her higher pay. Her request was shut down once again, leading Emmy to wonder if she would ever be paid fairly.

“It’s always scary asking for what you think you’re worth,” Emmy said. “To say, ‘I think this is what I’m worth,’ you have to take up space in the room.”

As beginning of production for season eight neared, Emmy‘s salary remained unclear. She initially thought the negotiations would happen in private, but they were made public.

“I was on a writer’s retreat, and I was procrastinating, and I opened up Twitter, and it was a headline that we were in, like, a stalemate. And I was shook,” the Golden Globe-nominated actress recalled. “It’s a private business negotiation, and I never imagined it would become public. Not just for the public, but also for the rest of the cast and the crew.”

Though she was wary about how the public would react to her battle, Emmy said that “the tide really shifted” after her negotiations were publicized.

“People seemed to write other articles immediately commenting on that, kind of being quite surprised that I wasn’t already being paid equal,” she said.

A day later, Emmy signed her new contract after successfully negotiating a salary increase.

“I was shocked and, quite frankly, very, very surprised that we got it,” Emmy said before reflecting on why she fought so hard for equal pay. “I only desire to remain professional, and my focus is never on money; it’s on what’s fair and what’s right, and I believe that people should be paid for their labor. It was really about being valued equally when I was doing equal work.”

She did admit, though, that there were times where she wondered if she was being unnecessarily difficult. Emmy also noted that she loved working on Shameless so much that she was willing to forgo her demands.

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“There were also a lot of men on my team who were like, ‘Let’s get this. We are going to get this. We are not going to go back unless we get this.’ So it wasn’t me saying, ‘I want this,’” Emmy shared. “There were a lot of times where I felt scared and wanted to cave. I was like, ‘Who cares? I love this show. I love these people. I want to do this.’”

After Emmy got her salary increase, she said that there was a ripple effect as other women also began speaking up for themselves in their respective fields.

“I was very, very happy when we got it, and very, very happy for what it seemingly did for other women,” she reflected. “I was in a health food store in Ontario or somewhere in Canada, making a movie a year later. A girl in the health food store said to me, ‘Oh, thank you so much for what you did for pay equity. We all asked for a raise here.’ And I couldn’t imagine that it had traveled so far.”

Also in her interview on Call Her Daddy, Emmy looked back at her first marriage to music exec Justin Siegel and shared the story behind their breakup.

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