Sometimes a Hollywood set is not the most positive place to be.
Stars, such as Claire Foy and Florence Pugh, have either spoken out or hinted at having a negative experience while working on a project, specifically when it came to their directors. In other cases, directors have said it is the actors who are difficult.
Here are some celebrities who have admitted to having a tough time with directors – as well as the other way around.
From left to right, Claire Foy, Amy Adams and Florence Pugh have all experienced their share of difficulties with directors on different film sets. (Getty Images)
Claire Foy
Claire Foy recalled working with a difficult director on her first job. (Photo by David M. Benett/Dave Benett/Getty Images)
During a recent appearance on the “Happy Sad Confused” podcast, Claire Foy recalled her first time working on a set. While filming an episode of “Being Human,” Foy revealed the episode’s director yelled at her to “start acting, darling!”
“First job I ever did on TV, which was ‘Being Human.’ The pilot, with Russell Tovey and Andrea Riseborough,” Foy said on the podcast. “I didn’t know what I was doing, and he shouted it at me,” Foy remembered. “It’s taken me a long time to accept that it was actually a very unkind thing to do to a 23-year-old on their first job ever.”
Foy pointed out that rather than taking a new young actor “under [his] wing,” and giving constructive criticism, the director allegedly began “just shouting at them in front of everyone.”
“Sometimes not very nice directors need someone to bully on set, and I was like that person,” Foy added.
Claire Foy is pictured here with Andrew Scott, her co-star in the new film, “All of Us Strangers.” (Photo by Karwai Tang/WireImage)
Foy went on to reveal the director “doesn’t really work anymore.” Upon hearing this, Andrew Scott, who stars alongside Foy in the new movie “All of Us Strangers” and was also a part of the interview, remarked, “but you f—ing do!”
Bruce Willis
Kevin Smith expressed regret for his petty complaints about Bruce Willis after learning of his aphasia diagnosis. Willis has since been diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia. (Photo by Bobby Bank/WireImage)
On the other hand, Kevin Smith worked with Bruce Willis when he directed the actor in the movie “Cop Out” in 2010. A year later, the director called working with Willis “soul crushing,” during an appearance on Marc Maron’s podcast, “WTF with Marc Maron.”
The “Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back” actor went on to say “it was difficult” to work with Willis, saying the actor “wouldn’t even sit for a f—ing poster shoot.” The experience was so negative for Smith, he said at the time, if “not for Tracy [Morgan,] I might have killed either myself or someone else in the making of f—ing ‘Cop Out.'”
For his part, Willis has never spoken about what went on between him and the director, but it seems as if Smith has changed his tune.
“Long before any of the Cop Out stuff, I was a big Bruce Willis fan – so this is really heartbreaking to read,” Smith posted following the news of Willis’ aphasia diagnosis in March 2022. “He loved to act and sing and the loss of that has to be devastating for him. I feel like an a–hole for my petty complaints from 2010. So sorry to BW and his family.”
Willis has since been diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia.
Florence Pugh
Florence Pugh and Olivia Wilde reportedly did not get along during the filming of “Don’t Worry Darling.” (Photo by Alessandra Benedetti – Corbis/Corbis via Getty Images)
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While Florence Pugh has never addressed the rumors of her feud with “Don’t Worry Darling” director, Olivia Wilde, speculation began swirling following an Instagram post she shared. In the post, Pugh celebrated the end of filming, by thanking everyone on set, including COVID medical staff and gaffers, but made no mention of Wilde.
The rumor mill continued to turn when Pugh barely promoted the film on social media and chose to skip the majority of promotional events for the movie. When the trailer for the film was released, Pugh was uncomfortable with the focus it placed on its sex scenes, while Wilde defended her decision, telling Vogue, “when it comes to female pleasure, it’s something that we just don’t see very often.”
“When it’s reduced to your sex scenes, or to watch the most famous man in the world go down on someone, it’s not why we do it,” Pugh told Harper’s Bazaar in August 2022.
“It’s not why I’m in this industry… Obviously, the nature of hiring the most famous pop star in the world, you’re going to have conversations like that. That’s just not what I’m going to be discussing because [this movie is] bigger and better than that. And the people who made it are bigger and better than that.”
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Amy Adams
Christian Bale admitted to having to act as a mediator between Amy Adams and director David O. Russell on the set of “American Hustle.” (Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images for AFI)
During a 2016 interview with British GQ, Amy Adams spoke about her experience working with director David O. Russell on the film, “American Hustle.” She told the outlet he made her cry multiple times, saying most days “I was really just devastated on set.”
She explained that part of what made filming so difficult was “I also don’t like to see other people treated badly,” but that the experience “really taught me how to separate work and home.”
While the director’s method seemed to bother others on set, Christian Bale told GQ in October 2022 he would act as “mediator” between Adams and Russell. He explained, “when you’re working with people of the crazy creative talent of Amy or of David, there are gonna be upsets. But they are f—ing phenomenal.”
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“If I can have some sense of understanding of where it’s coming from, then I do tend to attempt to be a mediator,” he told the outlet. “That’s just in my nature, to try to say, ‘Hey, come on, let’s go and sit down and figure that out. There’s gotta be a way of making this all work.'”
