14 Times Actors Held Nothing Back And Name-Dropped The Worst Directors They've Ever Worked With

This post contains mention of sexual assault.

On set, a director is essentially an actor's boss. However, unlike most other jobs, actors often have to tap into their emotions in a big way. They should be able to trust their director to help guide them, but unfortunately, directors don't always treat their actors with the care they should.

Here are 14 times actors called out their worst experiences with directors:

1.In 2024, George Clooney told British GQ, "The older you get, time allotment is very different. Five months out of your life is a lot. And so it's not just like, 'Oh, I'm going to go do a really good film, like Three Kings, and I'm going to have a miserable fuck like David O. Russell making my life hell. Making every person in the crew's life hell.'"

2.In 2016, Amy Adams told British GQ that David O. Russell made her cry on the set of American Hustle. She said, "He did. He was hard on me, that's for sure. It was a lot. I was really just devastated on set. I mean, not every day, but most."

3.In 2024, Sally Field told Vulture that Steel Magnolias director Herbert Ross "was very, very, very hard on Julia [Roberts]." She said, "If you ever talk to Julia, she’ll tell you. We would all rally around Julia, because she was the baby. She was sort of the newcomer. And she was wonderful, and he just picked on her. It was awful."

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She said he picked on Julia "because he could be a real son of a bitch, that’s why."

She continued, "Some people just need to have somebody they pick on. But we all came to her aid, and I remember Dolly [Parton] once just turned on him — always with humor, but usually the most vulgar humor you ever heard so that it was like, you just literally don’t have a leg to stand on."

She also said he "dared not" treat her the way he treated Julia.

4.In a since-deleted 2017 Facebook post, Elliot Page alleged that, when he was 18, X-Men: The Last Stand Brett Ratner outed him and made a sexual comment about him to someone else during a cast and crew "meet and greet."

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He said, "I was a young adult who had not yet come out to myself. I knew I was gay, but did not know, so to speak. I felt violated when this happened. I looked down at my feet, didn’t say a word and watched as no one else did either. This man, who had cast me in the film, started our months of filming at a work event with this horrific, unchallenged plea. He 'outed' me with no regard for my well-being, an act we all recognize as homophobic. I proceeded to watch him on set say degrading things to women."

Later in the post, Elliot said, "I got into an altercation with Brett at a certain point. He was pressuring me, in front of many people, to don a t-shirt with 'Team Ratner' on it. I said no and he insisted. I responded, 'I am not on your team.' Later in the day, producers of the film came to my trailer to say that I 'couldn’t talk like that to him.' I was being reprimanded, yet he was not being punished nor fired for the blatantly homophobic and abusive behavior we all witnessed. I was an actor that no one knew. I was eighteen and had no tools to know how to handle the situation."

5.In 2020, Ray Fisher tweeted, "Joss [Whedon]'s on-set treatment of the cast and crew of Justice League was gross, abusive, unprofessional, and completely unacceptable. He was enabled, in many ways, by [producers] Geoff Johns and Jon Berg. Accountability>Entertainment."

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In 2021, Ray told The Hollywood Reporter that, after taking over from Zack Snyder, the director cut his characters' important backstory and was dismissive of him.

After Ray's tweet, Warner sources reportedly claimed Zack was manipulating him. However, Ray said, "The assertion that a Black man would not have his own agency is just as racist as the conversations [Warners leadership] was having about the Justice League reshoots. I’ve been underestimated at every turn during this process and that is what has led us to this point. Had they taken me as seriously as they should have from the beginning, they would not have made as many foolish mistakes as they did in the process."

WarnerMedia, investigated the allegations made by Ray and others who worked on the movie and took "remedial action" as a result.

6.In 2016, Tippi Hendren told NPR that The Birds and Marnie director Alfred Hitchcock's treatment of her "became such a problem for [her] that [she] demanded to get out of the contract."

7.In 2007, Jake Gyllenhaal told the New York Times that Zodiac director David Fincher "paints with people." He said, "It's tough to be a color."

8.In 2015, Burt Reynolds told GQ that he likely wouldn't work with Boogie Nights director Paul Thomas Anderson again because "personality-wise, [they] didn't fit."

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He said, "I think mostly because he was young and full of himself. Every shot we did, it was like the first time [that shot had ever been done]. I remember the first shot we did in Boogie Nights, where I drive the car to Grauman's Theater. After he said, 'Isn't that amazing?' And I named five pictures that had the same kind of shot. It wasn't original. But if you have to steal, steal from the best."

9.In 2009, Megan Fox called out Transformers franchise director Michael Bay. She told Wonderland magazine, "He’s like Napoleon and he wants to create this insane, infamous mad man reputation. He wants to be like Hitler on his sets, and he is."

10.On a 2024 episode of Sunday Sitdown with Willie Geist, Hannah Waddingham recalled calling out the Les Misérables director over how he treated the background and ensemble performers, who mostly came from the theater world, differently than the leading talent, who were mainly Hollywood A-listers. She said, "Tom Hooper and I had a gentle falling out because he asked somebody else to get all us musical theater people to bring it down, and I heard it, and I'd had enough. And because I was just doing one scene, I thought: 'I'm just gonna have to say something,' and I said: 'Can I just stop you there?'"

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She continued, "I just had enough, at this point, of feeling like I should be grateful for a scene in this and a scene in that, and it'll add up, and eventually, something will happen. I just had enough of it.

I say: 'You do realize that this girl here is playing Fantine, the whole role, in the West End at the moment? Every night? This girl here is currently playing Elphaba… And we're all here doing one scene for the greater good of this movie. Can I remind you that all these people, you wouldn't have a film to direct unless people were in the West End or Broadway. It is a total vocation. You wouldn't have a film to direct if we didn't do the hard work on stage. If you want us to take it down, ask us to take it down.'"

She said that the director listened, and they later laughed about the confrontation.

She said, "We were fine after that, but I just thought: 'No, don't presume that people in theater can only do that, ask us to do that — ask us to just do nothing, give people a chance to prove themselves, don't write us all off!'"

11.In 2020, Olivia Munn told Variety that Bryan Singer left in the middle of filming X-Men. She said, "I never shot a huge movie like that before. I didn't know what was right or wrong, but I did know that it seems strange that Bryan Singer could check out and say he had a thyroid issue. Instead of going to a doctor in Montreal, which is a very high-level, working city, he said he had to go to LA. And he was gone for about 10 days is my recollection. And he said, 'Continue. Keep filming.' We'd be on set, I remember there's a big scene that we'd have, and we'd come back from lunch and then one of Bryan's assistants would come up and show us a cellphone with a text message on it."

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She continued, "And he texted to the actors, 'Hey guys. I'm busy right now. But just go ahead and start filming without me.' And we'd be like, 'OK.' And I never thought any of it was normal, but I didn't realize that other people also thought it wasn't normal. And the other people who thought it wasn't normal would be people at high levels, people who make decisions on whether to hire this person.

Come to find out it is really strange and it wasn't OK. But this person is allowed to continue to go on. Fox still gives him Bohemian Rhapsody, and then we all know what happened."

He was reportedly fired from Bohemian Rhapsody for clashing with lead actor Rami Malik and for not showing up at work, which he denied. At the time, he was also facing multiple allegations of sexual misconduct, which he denied.

12.In 2019, Rami Malek, who worked with Bryan Singer on Bohemian Rhapsody before the director was reportedly fired, told The Hollywood Reporter, "In my situation with Bryan, it was not pleasant, not at all. And that's about what I can say about it at this point."

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Alluding to the director's sexual misconduct allegations, Rami added, "For anyone who is seeking any solace in all of this, Bryan Singer was fired. Bryan Singer was fired. I don't think that was something anyone saw coming, but I think that had to happen, and it did."

He also said, "My heart goes out to anyone who has to live through anything like what I've heard and what is out there. It's awful, it's remarkable that this happens, I can appreciate so much what they've been through and how difficult this must be for them. In the light of the #MeToo era that this somehow seems to exist after that, it's a horrible thing."

13.In 2020, Halle Berry, who worked with Bryan Singer in the X-Men franchise, told Variety, "Bryan's not the easiest dude to work with. I mean, everybody's heard the stories — I don't have to repeat them — and heard of his challenges and what he struggles with. I would sometimes be very angry with him," she continues. I got into a few fights with him, said a few cuss words out of sheer frustration. When I work, I'm serious about that. And when that gets compromised, I get a little nutty. But at the same time, I have a lot of compassion for people who are struggling with whatever they're struggling with, and Bryan struggles."

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She continued, "Sometimes, because of whatever he's struggling with, he just didn't always feel present. He didn't feel there. And we're outside in our little X-Men stage, freezing our ass off in Banff, Canada, with subzero weather, and he's not focusing. And we're freezing. You might get a little mad."

The director declined to comment for the Variety article.

14.And finally, appearing on The Hollywood Reporter's 2022 Actress Roundtable, Jennifer Lawrence talked about how working with female directors differed from working with male directors. She said, "It was incredible to not be around toxic masculinity — to get a little break from it. And it did always just make us laugh about how we ended up with, 'Women shouldn't be in roles like this because we're so emotional.' I mean, I've worked with Bryan Singer [on four X-Men films]. I've seen emotional men. I've seen the biggest hissy fits thrown on set."

If you or someone you know has experienced sexual assault, you can call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE, which routes the caller to their nearest sexual assault service provider. You can also search for your local center here.