At The Hollywood Reporter's Actress Roundtable this year, which included Jennifer Lawrence, Michelle Yeoh, Michelle Williams, Danielle Deadwyler, Emma Corrin and Claire Foy, Jennifer spoke up about working with male directors who displayed toxic masculinity.
Having worked with Bryan Singer on three X-Men films, she began by talking about her experience with female director Lila Neugebauer on her recent Apple TV+ release Causeway (pictured above). 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. I’ve seen emotional men. I’ve seen the biggest hissy fits thrown on set. [Neugebauer's] my third female director, and they are the calmest, best decision-makers I’ve ever worked with. I absolutely love working with female directors."
Jennifer isn't the first to complain about Singer's behavior on set. Alan Cumming wrote in his memoir that Singer told him and his X2: X-Men United co-stars that none of them "had ever made a decent film" and that the actors "were lucky to be working with him." Halle Berry responded by saying "I've heard enough," and as she walked away, she said, "You can kiss my Black a--."
Rami Malek, who worked with Singer on the Queen biopic Bohemian Rhapsody, has been quoted as saying, “We definitely had artistic differences." It was reported by W magazine that before Singer was fired from the project, Malek and he had a confrontation that allegedly involved Singer throwing an object as the argument escalated. Malek's co-star Tom Hollander, who was playing Queen's manager, quit the production, but came back to finish the film after Singer was fired.
Two months after Rami spoke about Singer, in March 2019 during an interview with Rolling Stone magazine, Game of Thrones star Sophie Turner spoke of her time working with Bryan Singer on the film X-Men: Apocalypse, saying only, “Our time together was, like Rami said, unpleasant.”
Jennifer Lawrence had more to say about working with female directors, adding, “It was just so interesting to be on a female-led movie. My producing partner and I were the lead producers. We had a female director. The schedule made sense. There were no huge fights. If an actor had a personal thing and wanted to leave early, instead of going [sarcastically], ‘Oh! Well, we’d all love to leave early!’ we’d put our heads together and go, ‘Okay. How can we figure this out?’ We disagreed, and we listened to each other. Sometimes I was wrong and would learn that I was wrong, and sometimes I was right.” ~Alexandra Heilbron
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