Anna Faris (left) claimed Ivan Reitman (right) screamed at her when she showed up 20 or 25 minutes late. Photos: AFP
Actress Anna Faris revealed Wednesday (Oct 19) that late Ghostbusters director Ivan Reitman once slapped her backside on a movie set.
Describing the filmmaker’s “reign of terror” on the 2006 comedy My Super Ex-Girlfriend, on her Unqualified podcast, Faris said that working with Reitman was one of her “hardest film experiences”.
“He was a yeller,” Faris said during a conversation with actress Lena Dunham. “He would bring down somebody every day. My first day, it was me.”
Faris, 45, claimed Reitman screamed at her when she showed up 20 or 25 minutes late after a crew member spilled wig glue on her sweater.
“I felt angry and hurt and humiliated and defensive,” Faris recalled. “Eventually I said, ‘Did no one tell you what happened?’ And at that point, he kind of just shut up and went behind the camera. But later, he slapped my a-s, too. That was a weird moment.”
Faris said nobody came to her defense, acknowledging to Dunham that the production took place long before the #MeToo movement.
The actress previously referenced an alleged slapping incident during an October 2017 episode of her podcast but didn’t name the director.
“I was doing a scene where I was on a ladder and I was supposed to be taking books off of a shelf, and he slapped my a-s in front of the crew so hard,” Faris said. “And all I could do was giggle. I remember looking around and I remember seeing crew members being like, ‘Wait, what are you going to do about that? That seemed weird.’”
Film producer Gavin Polone, who worked on My Super Ex-Girlfriend, told Deadline he wasn’t aware of Faris’ accusation.
“I never saw that incident, or heard about it, but I would not have any reason to dispute Anna’s account, either,” Polone said Wednesday.
“If Anna says it happened, I believe her. If it had happened in front of me, I certainly would have confronted Ivan about it. I’m sad to think Anna was demeaned in that way.”
Reitman, who also directed Stripes and Kindergarten Cop, died in February at age 75. – New York Daily News/Tribune News Service
