“I think that I’m still of the generation and of the mentality of how to calibrate that element.”
Anna Faris has revealed who the director that she claimed inappropriately touched her in 2017 is.
Recalling two incidents with director Ivan Reitman, where he allegedly “slapped my ass” and “humiliated” her on the set of 2006’s My Super Ex-Girlfriend, Anna revealed more about that time on her podcast Unqualified when she spoke with Lena Dunham.
“One of my hardest film experiences was with Ivan Reitman,” she recalled. “I mean, the idea of attempting to make a comedy under this, like, reign of terror. He was a yeller. He would bring down somebody every day, and my first day it was me.”
“I’m, like, in the middle of the street that’s all lit — you know, it’s a night shoot — and Ivan is just taking me down. He’s like, ‘Annie… You can’t play like that around here!’ and I was like, ‘Don’t do it. Don’t cry. No crying.’ I felt angry and hurt and humiliated and defensive. Eventually I just said, ‘Did no one tell you what happened?’ And at that point he kind of just shut up and went behind the camera.”
In another encounter with him on set, she said: “Later, he slapped my ass too. That was a weird moment.”
“With that incident, I think that I’m still of the generation and of the mentality of how to calibrate that element,” she said. “On one hand, it wasn’t anything, whatever, my ass is fine. On the other hand, it was like, I did have 30 people around me expecting me to do something and I didn’t.”
Anna first accused Reitman of inappropriate conduct in 2017 but did not name the director, continuing on the podcast at the time: “I was doing a scene where I was on a ladder and I was supposed to be taking books off a shelf and he slapped my ass in front of the crew so hard. And all I could do was giggle.
“I remember looking around and I remember seeing the crew members being like, ‘Wait, what are you going to do about that? That seemed weird.’ And that’s how I dismissed it. I was like, ‘Well, this isn’t a thing. Like, it’s not that big of a deal. Buck up, Faris. Like, just giggle.’ But it made me feel small. He wouldn’t have done that to the lead male.”
Reitman died earlier this year in his sleep at age 75.
