Actors Who Were Really Creepy On Set
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Hollywood can be a truly hostile work environment. Sometimes even with the fat paychecks and cushy accommodations, things can get really uncomfortable on movie and television show sets...and often that's because a star exhibits less-than-stellar behavior. These celebrities all allegedly gave their co-stars and crews the creeps.
Jamie Dornan
Jamie Dornan may not have necessarily been a weirdo on the set of BBC's The Fall (2013-) but he sure was creepy getting into character for it.
Dornan, who played a serial killer in the series, told the Los Angeles Times, "I, like, followed a woman off the train one day to see what it felt like to pursue someone like that. I really kept my distance... she got off a few stops earlier than I was planning so I said, 'Right, I have to commit to this.' I followed her around a couple of street corners and then was like: 'What are you doing?'"
He added, "It felt kind of exciting, in a really sort of dirty way. I'm sort of not proud of myself. But I do honestly think I learned something from it, because I've obviously never done any of that. It was intriguing and interesting to enter that process of 'What are you following her for?' and 'What are you trying to find out?'"
Louis C.K.
In November 2017, five women accused comedian, actor, writer, and producer Louis C.K. of sexual harassment, including two incidents which allegedly occurred on sets of television shows. Comedian Rebecca Corry told The New York Times that while she and C.K. were both working on an unnamed television pilot in 2005, he asked her if she would watch him pleasure himself. She rejected his offer.
Another woman, who requested to remain anonymous in The New York Times story, accused C.K. of pleasuring himself in front of her while they were at work on The Chris Rock Show during the late 1990s.
While C.K. previously denied allegations of this sort, he responded to The New York Times story with a statement confessing to all of the sexual misconduct accusations in the article. "These stories are true," he said. "At the time, I said to myself that what I did was okay because I never showed a woman my d**k without asking first, which is also true. But what I learned later in life, too late, is that when you have power over another person, asking them to look at your d**k isn't a question. It's a predicament for them. The power I had over these women is that they admired me. And I wielded that power irresponsibly."
Bijou Phillips
In the wake of the Harvey Weinstein scandal, stories of on-set sexual harassment and other offensive behavior have been pouring out. One of the more shocking stories came from Bully (2001) actor Daniel Franzese, who wrote in a lengthy Facebook post about alleged abuse he suffered at the hands of his co-star on the film, Bijou Phillips.
Franzese claims Phillips taunted him for being bisexual, body-shamed him by laughing at him during a scene in which he appeared shirtless, and physically assaulted him by twisting his nipple and kicking him in the back of the head, leaving him "light headed and dizzy for a while." Franzese also alleged Phillips terrorized the wardrobe department by burning her clothes with a cigarette and throwing a carton of eggs at the costume trailer.
Phillips responded to the accusations, telling TMZ, "I don't remember that time well, those years are a blur. I was a teenager and reckless in my behavior. I know Daniel to be a trustworthy and honest person, and to find out through social media that I was not the friend I thought I was to him made me so sad." She also said that she was "mortified" by her own behavior and denied that she is homophobic.
Franzese later accepted Phillips' apology, tweeting: "I forgive @BijouPhillips because I don't know her private story either. I shared this story only to bring light to a dark memory."
Robert De Niro
Robert De Niro got so into his Cape Fear (1991) character, Max Cady, that he actually freaked out director Martin Scorsese.
De Niro's character was a Southern-born and bred psychopath who'd been released from prison after a rape conviction. De Niro used a strong Southern accent for the role that Scorsese reportedly hated...so De Niro left Scorsese messages on his answering machine using that very voice.
Kevin Spacey
After actor Anthony Rapp accused Kevin Spacey of sexually assaulting him when Rapp was just 14 years old, more allegations came out against the House of Cards (2013-) star.
CNN reported that Spacey allegedly sexually assaulted a former production assistant during an early season of House of Cards. The production assistant, who spoke under the condition of anonymity, claimed Spacey put his hands down the assistant's pants during a drive to the show's set. The production assistant also alleged Spacey frequently touched low-level production employees without consent and often made inappropriate comments in their presence, noting that Spacey's alleged targets were young and male.
"I have no doubt that this type of predatory behavior was routine for him and that my experience was one of many and that Kevin had few if any qualms about exploiting his status and position," the production assistant said. "It was a toxic environment for young men who had to interact with him at all in the crew, cast, background actors."
Another crew member said Spacey harassed him on set as well. "He would put his hands on me in weird ways," the crew member told CNN. "He would come in and massage my shoulders from behind or put his hands around me or touch my stomach sometimes in weird ways that in normal everyday conversation would not be appropriate."
Several other crew members claimed to have witnessed Spacey behaving inappropriately throughout the entire filming of the Netflix series, from which Spacey was fired in November 2017.
Shia LaBeouf
Shia LaBeouf was allegedly a nightmare on the set of World War II drama Fury (2014)—and he smelled like one, too. A source told the Daily Mail, "Shia was warned about his behavior by several people on set, including Brad Pitt and director David Ayer. He didn't heed any of their warnings and found himself staying in a small bed-and-breakfast hotel away from the rest of the cast."
The insider explained, "LaBeouf Shia drove everyone mad on set trying to prove that he was the most dedicated star. He pulled out his own tooth during the first few weeks of filming and then refused to shower for weeks on end so he could better understand how his character would have felt living in the trenches."
Steven Seagal
In November 2017, a Hollywood executive accused Steven Seagal of sexually harassing her on the set of Out for Justice (1991). The executive, who asked to remain anonymous, told Page Six that Seagal allegedly propositioned her numerous times during filming and attempted to watch her changing before she was let go from the film. She also claimed that when she repeatedly rejected Seagal's advances, he told her, "You are no fun."
Actresses Julianna Margulies, Portia De Rossi, and Jenny McCarthy have also accused Seagal of sexual harassment in the past.
Nicolas Cage
Nicolas Cage reportedly went to such ridiculous lengths to get into character for Ghost Rider: The Spirit of Vengeance (2011) that he seriously creeped out his co-stars out.
Cage told The Showbiz 411 that despite much of his character being computer-generated, he would "sew in bits of Egyptian artifacts that were thousands of years old into my costume, and gather some onyx or tourmaline or something that was meant to have vibrations" in an effort to be "nouveau shamanic."
He told Empire (via Screen Crush), "I would paint my face with black and white makeup to look like a Afro-Caribbean icon called Baron Samedi, or an Afro-New Orleans icon who is also called Baron Saturday. He is a spirit of death but he loves children; he's very lustful, so he's a conflict in forces. And I would put black contact lenses in my eyes so that you could see no white and no pupil, so I would look more like a skull or a white shark on attack. I would walk on the set looking like this, loaded with all these magical trinkets, and I wouldn't say a word to my co-stars or crew or directors. I saw the fear in their eyes, and it was like oxygen to a forest fire. I believed I was the Ghost Rider."
Dustin Hoffman
A former production assistant accused Dustin Hoffman of repeatedly sexually harassing her on the set of a TV movie adaptation of Death of a Salesman in 1985—when the assistant was just 17 years old.
In an essay for The Hollywood Reporter, Anna Graham Hunter accused Hoffman, then 48, of frequently making lewd comments on the set of the film and groping her without consent. Graham Hunter claimed that when she complained about his behavior, higher-ups essentially told her to shut up and get over it. She said Hoffman was apologetic for his actions when she spoke to him about his behavior privately.
Hoffman has not denied the allegations. "I have the utmost respect for women and feel terrible that anything I might have done could have put her in an uncomfortable situation," he said in a statement. "I am sorry. It is not reflective of who I am."
Jared Leto
Jared Leto was so desperate to embody The Joker in Suicide Squad (2016) that he drove all of his co-stars almost as crazy as his own character. Adam Beach, who played Slipknot in the film, told E! News that Leto "gifted" co-star Will Smith with bullets and a letter (not the worst, considering Smith starred as sharpshooter Deadshot), Margot Robbie with a live rat, and the cast as a whole with a dead hog. According to Screen Crush, other generous presents included a fairly innocuous video message, used condoms, pornographic magazines, a love letter, and anal beads. Here's hoping everyone got gift receipts.
Marlon Brando
In what he later described as an attempt to get Maria Schneider's "reaction as a girl, not as an actress," Last Tango in Paris (1972) director Bernardo Bertolucci admitted that he colluded with Marlon Brando to keep certain elements of a rape scene secret from his then-19-year-old co-star. The scene involves Brando forcing himself on Schneider, using butter to perform an unwanted act.
Speaking with the Daily Mail in 2007, Schneider said, "That scene wasn't in the original script. The truth is it was Marlon who came up with the idea... Marlon said to me: 'Maria, don't worry, it's just a movie,' but during the scene, even though what Marlon was doing wasn't real, I was crying real tears." She continued, "I felt humiliated and to be honest, I felt a little raped, both by Marlon and by Bertolucci. After the scene, Marlon didn't console me or apologise. Thankfully, there was just one take." As if that wasn't bad enough, Brando also reportedly told Schneider that she reminded him of his daughter, Cheyenne, because of her "baby face."
Schneider said her whole life was affected by the film. She claims she was ostracized from the industry because of its controversial nature, and she even struggled with drug abuse for years afterwards as a result of the experience.
Robert Pattinson
Robert Pattinson admitted that his love scene with Reese Witherspoon on the set of Water for Elephants (2011) was a much more disgusting affair than what audiences got to see.
Speaking with MTV, he said, "I was doing it when I had a really bad cold. My nose is running all over the place, and it was in one of the additional photography scenes, and Reese had this wig on, and literally, I was wiping my nose on her wig."
Witherspoon confirmed the snot-covered scene: "It wasn't appealing; it wasn't pleasant."
Ugh, how horrible. We don't know much Pattinson got paid for this flick, but we're pretty sure it would have covered the cost of some cold meds and a few boxes of Kleenex.
Faye Dunaway & Roman Polanski
In a now infamous excerpt from Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex-Drugs-and-Rock 'N' Roll Generation Saved Hollywood, author Peter Biskind reveals the alleged bitter rivalry between director Roman Polanski and actress Faye Dunaway on the set of Chinatown (1974).
According to the book, Dunaway acted like a diva during production, allegedly "peeing in wastebaskets rather than [walking] to her trailer" and holding up production for her beauty regime. Polanski, having little patience for Dunaways antics, resorted to a gruff directorial approach that supposedly included plucking her hair and depriving her of a requested bathroom break. In retaliation, Dunaway "threw a coffee cup full of liquid in Roman's face," according to John Alonzo, the director of photography. The liquid was urine—either Dunaway's or co-star Jack Nicholson's.
Polanski later described Dunaway as "difficult" and blamed her for almost halting production. When asked by The Guardian in a 2008 interview about the alleged urine fiasco, Dunaway flew into a rage, claimed she didn't "know the details of that," and ended the interview. "I don't believe it! It is insulting that you would even bring it up!" she said, adding, "I am a lady and you were completely insulting."
Sounds like these two were a match made in human resources hell.
Bill Skarsgard
Bill Skarsgard was so convincing as Pennywise in It (2017) that he was worried he'd traumatized the kids in the movie.
Jaeden Lieberher, who plays Bill in the movie, talked about Skarsgard with The Hollywood Reporter. "It is kind of frightening when you're around him in his makeup and wardrobe, and he's so tall! It is the weirdest thing though when he's talking to you, and he's a normal human being asking you how school is going, how the shoot is going. He's really nice... When he did get into the scene it was terrifying."
One of Skarsgard's other young co-stars on the flick, Wyatt Oleff, told Instant, "They actually separated Bill and The Losers' Club to make us not know what he'd look like, so that the first reaction would be really raw... We were definitely scared from that... It was definitely scary at first, until he was really nice and shook our hands and was really cool...but still scary."
Skarsgard talked about moment on Jimmy Kimmel Live: "It was my first day of shooting and we deliberately kept me separate from the kids...and in the scene I walk out and approach him and it's very intense—I'm right in his face, drooling all over him and he's crying... I'm doing this clown thing and screaming... and I approach him and scream in his face and we're doing the scene, and he's crying and gagging, and in the back of my head I'm like, 'Oh my God, I'm traumatizing this child! What am I doing?'"
Dustin Hoffman (again)
The set of the Oscar-sweeping 1979 film Kramer vs. Kramer was fraught with intensity from the very beginning, thanks to the psychological meddling Hoffman allegedly inflicted on his co-stars, particularly Meryl Streep.
Author Michael Schulman profiled the stressful shoot for his book, Her Again: Becoming Meryl Streep (via Vanity Fair), claiming not even 7-year-old actor Justin Henry, who played Hoffman and Streep's son, Billy, escaped Hoffman's questionable interference. According to the book, Henry was intentionally kept in the dark about every scene up until right before they shot it, leaving the young actor exposed to experience raw emotion in difficult scenes. When they really wanted a visceral reaction out of him, Hoffman allegedly instructed Henry to "imagine losing his dog."
Hoffman's treatment of Henry pales in comparison to his torture of Streep. On the second day of the shoot, Hoffman inexplicably slapped her in the face, then later brought up the recent death of her boyfriend, actor John Cazale [Fredo from The Godfather], in order to "get the response that he thought she should be giving in the performance," executive Richard Fischoff told Vanity Fair. He also reportedly smashed a wineglass into a wall just inches from Streep's face, leaving "shards of glass in her hair." The worst part is that Hoffman allegedly pushed for Streep to be cast in the move based on his knowledge of Cazale's death–the idea being that her real-life grief would translate to her character.