Anna Faris reveals Ivan Reitman touched her inappropriately during My Super Ex-Girlfriend

Back in 2017 as the #MeToo movement was unfolding, Anna Faris shared a story on her podcast Unqualified about how a director “slapped [her] ass in front of the crew” while filming a movie. At the time, she didn’t reveal any identifying details of the incident. Now, on a new episode of the podcast with guest Lena Dunham, Faris revealed that the director in question was Ghostbusters’ Ivan Reitman during My Super Ex-Girlfriend.

Discussing what makes filming with a director good or bad, Faris told Dunham that her negative experiences happen when a director “scares the shit out of” her. “Can I speak ill of the dead?” she asked. “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.”

She went on to describe how she was 20 to 25 minutes late for her first scene because someone had accidentally dumped wig glue all over her. “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. … And I felt angry, and hurt, and humiliated, and defensive. 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,” she recalled. “But then later, he slapped my ass too. That was a weird moment.”

“I don’t think you’re the first person who’s reported that. And I’m so sorry you had that experience. And did no one step in and say, ‘No?’” Dunham asked. “No, it was like 2006,” Faris replied. “It was like, I am gonna lay low and play it safe. I am taking zero risk in this movie.”

“With that incident, I think that I’m still of the generation, of the mentality of like, how to calibrate that element,” she continued. “Like, on one hand, it wasn’t anything, whatever, my ass 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.”

When Faris shared this story with guest Arielle Kebbel back in 2017, she said that “all I could do was giggle” even though “it made me feel small. He wouldn’t have done that to the lead male.” She added, “I remember that same director telling my agent, who told me, that I had great legs and that was one of the reasons that I got hired. And listen, that’s a fucking great compliment. I like my legs. But that sort of informed my whole experience with that whole project. I don’t think the male lead got hired because he had great legs. Therefore I felt like I’m hired because of these elements—not because of [talent].”

In the present, Dunham spoke on directors being the “figureheads” of a production, setting the tone for their sets. “I think my early experience, it was that time, you know? It was that time still,” Faris said. “When you speak about figurehead, I think that there was a mentality that it was supposed to be something else. It was supposed to be an asshole as a figurehead. A scary one.”