Cher Lambasts ‘Mask’ Director Peter Bogdanovich As Misogynistic, A “Pig”: “So F—ing Arrogant”

Natalie Oganesyan

23 November 2024 at 5:01 pm·3-min read

Cher has some choice words to describe a director with whom she previously worked.

In a sprawling interview with The Times of London, timed to the first-half release of her two-part memoir, she opened up about her childhood and career, including an acrimonious experience filming 1985’s biographical drama Mask with helmer Peter Bogdanovich.

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“There are only two directors I didn’t like: Peter Bogdanovich and the guy from The Muppets [Frank Oz, with whom she worked on 1990’s Mermaids]. I actually got the guy from The Muppets fired. I said, either you’re going or I’m going, which is a shame because he’s a really good director, but he had a thing about me. He would go, ‘At least my wife loves me!’”

Detailing her experience with the former filmmaker, the legendary multi-hyphenate said Bogdanovich was misogynistic and pompous. “He was an asshole. He was not nice to the girls in the film and he was so f—ing arrogant. I really, really disliked him.”

On one occasion, the Believe singer said a conversation about blocking turned into an explosive argument: “He comes in and says, ‘Cher, where do you think we should film this scene?’ And I say, ‘Well, the kitchen is working pretty well, why don’t we do that again?’ The next morning he arrives on set, eating an egg sandwich, and starts screaming that he’s not going to let me direct this film; I’m a nobody; he can cut me out at any moment. Oh yeah, he was a pig.”

When asked by the profiler if she had been trying to direct the film, Cher replied, “Ask everybody: I’m really easy to work with. I’m not arbitrary in the things I say, because it’s right to do what the director wants until you need to speak up. Meryl [Streep] says that if the director wants you to do something you don’t like, you say: yes, yes, yes, I’ll do it that way. Then you do it your way and they don’t even notice. I’ve worked with Bob Altman, Mike Nichols, Norman Jewison … Really great directors whom I respect. I know when to listen.”

The Oscar-nominated director of The Last Picture Show didn’t mince words about Cher either, saying in a 2019 interview with Vulture that she was the most difficult actor to work with.

“Well, she didn’t trust anybody, particularly men,” he said at the time, ahead of his death in 2022. “She doesn’t like men. That’s why she’s named Cher: She dropped her father’s name. Sarkisian, it is. She can’t act. She won Best Actress at Cannes because I shot her very well. And she can’t sustain a scene. She couldn’t do what Tatum [O’Neal] did in Paper Moon. She’d start off in the right direction, but she’d go off wrong somehow, very quickly. So I shot a lot of close-ups of her because she’s very good in close-ups. Her eyes have the sadness of the world. You get to know her, you find out it’s self-pity, but still, it translates well in movies. I shot more close-ups of her than I think in any picture I ever made.”

The second half of Cher’s memoir is slated for release in 2025.

Mask, also starring Sam Elliot, Eric Stoltz and Laura Dern, is based on the real life and early death of Roy L. “Rocky” Dennis, who had a rare genetic disorder called Lionitis, or craniodiaphyseal dysplasia, which causes calcium buildup in the skull, thus disfiguring facial features and shortening life expectancy. The film won the Academy Award for Best Makeup.

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