Anna Faris Recalled Director Ivan Reitman Being a ‘Yeller’ and His ‘Rein of Terror’
Actor Anna Faris recalled not only a negative experience working with Ghostbusters director Ivan Reitman but that Reitman inappropriately touched her on the set of My Super Ex-Girlfriend.
Faris wasn’t laughing off camera when she made the 2006 comedy and recently recounted the abusive behavior on set, which left her feeling humiliated and angry.
Anna Faris recalled Ivan Reitman yelled on the first day of shooting
Faris described her experience with Reitman as one of the most difficult in her career. “One of my hardest film experiences was with Ivan Reitman,” she told actor Lena Dunham on her Unqualified podcast. “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.”
The abusive behavior started immediately, Faris recalled. “My very first scene was a fight sequence with Uma Thurman. It was just the beginning of it. So we did the rest of the fight much later. But it was all really hard. It was New York. It was winter. And I wear a red wig. And right before, I’m in hair and makeup, and my hair lady knocks over a big jar of wig glue. It was, like, a quart.”
An accident in Anna’s trailer made her late – and worried
She said the glue spill was massive. “And it’s all over,” she said about the glue spill. “I had this Yves Saint Laurent sweater that my character was wearing.”
Because there was so much wig glue on her sweater, she was late on set – which terrified her. “Ugh, so I was 20 to 25 minutes late on my very first,” she said. “And I was terrified, truly, that my first day, Ivan thinks that I’m some kind of diva that’s not coming out of my trailer.” Meanwhile, Faris was terror-cleaning to fight her way back to the set as time ebbed away.
“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,” she said confirming that Reitman was yelling at her. “He was like, ‘Annie.’ He’d always called me Annie. He’s like, ‘You can’t play like that around here.’ Like, this is not like…And I was like, ‘Don’t do it. Don’t cry. No crying.’ And I felt angry and hurt.”
Anna Faris recalled an inappropriate move Ivan Reitman made
She also felt defensive. “Eventually, I said, ‘Did no one tell you what happened?’ And at that point, he kind of just shut up and then he went behind the camera,” Faris continued with her recollection. Adding, that Reitman then inappropriately and aggressively touched her.
“But then later, he slapped my a**, too. That was a weird moment,” she reflected. Dunham pointed out that Faris was not the first person to report that type of behavior and wondered if anyone tried to stop him. Faris replied, “No. It was 2006.”
She reveals that it occurred before #MeToo
Dunham and Faris acknowledged that the incident occurred before the #MeToo movement began, which had both actors looking back over their careers.
“Do you ever look back on all those experiences, especially because Hollywood is always hard?” Dunham wondered. “But for you, I mean, you’ve been doing this job now for a long time. Do you ever just look back and go like, “I cannot believe some of the s*** that I have survived and done and seen?”
Faris replied, “Yes. And sometimes, like with that incident, I think that I’m still of the generation and of the mentality of, like, how to calibrate that element. Like, on one hand, it wasn’t anything. Whatever. My a** is fine. On the other hand, it was like I did have, like, 30 people around me, I think, expecting me to do something. And I didn’t.”
