Famous for being a comedic actress, Anna Faris has established her name through many well-known productions such as Friends, The Scary Movie franchise, The Dictator, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, and many more.
In 2013, she landed the lead role in the CBS sitcom Mom as Christy which has aired for eight seasons. It became the third most-watched comedy sitcom on television and received generally favorable reviews.
Anna Faris’s working experience with Ivan Reitman
Director of popular films such as Ghostbusters, Kindergarten Cop, and No Strings Attached, Ivan Reitman has a long portfolio in the film industry and has produced many. He also worked with the Mom lead in My Super Ex-Girlfriend.
Despite being a regular in the acting industry by 2006, the actress was reportedly treated very harshly on the set of My Super Ex-Girlfriend. In her podcast, Unqualified, Anna Faris opened up on her experience while working with van Reitman. She stated:
“One of my hardest film experiences was with Ivan Reitman. 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.”
Supporting her experience, the podcast guest Lena Dunham noted how she wasn’t the first person to speak out against the Ghostbusters director. The host went on to comment how it was difficult for her to voice her objection since it was 2006, many years before the #MeToo movement gained traction.
Misogyny on the film set
As noted by the actor in the previous episodes of her podcast, this wasn’t the first time she suffered abuse from directors. In 2017, when the accusations against Harvey Weinstein were gaining support, Anna Faris recounted a harrowing incident she suffered on the set of an unnamed film. She said:
“[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.”
To her shock, most of the crew members waited for her to react, rather than finding the director’s actions disgusting. She ended up dismissing the moment by giggling. She further noted the same director wanted to hire her again for her “legs”, she said:
“Listen, that’s a fucking great compliment. I like my legs. But that sort of informed my whole experience with that whole project…therefore, I felt like I’m hired because of these elements – not because of [talent].”
She noted how a male actor wouldn’t have suffered these abuses, including the slap on the a** and the sexist comments about her legs.
Source: The Guardian
