COSTARS’ SILENCE CONFUSE OLIVIA
Olivia Munn says that she wanted her coactors to ‘not be blindsided’ and talk about having a registered sex offender in the cast of their film
Actor Olivia Munn has alleged that her co-stars from The Predator, directed by Shane Black, have shunned her and refused to give interviews with her.
Munn, who shared a scene with registered sex offender Steven Wilder Striegel in a now-deleted scene in the film, had alerted the concerned studio of his history. On Thursday, The Times published a report that said that the studio had deleted a scene from the upcoming sci-fi thriller that featured Striegel, Black’s friend of 14 years.
Black originally defended casting Striegel, who has previously appeared in the filmmaker’s Iron Man 3 (2013) and The Nice Guys (2016), saying “I personally chose to help a friend.”
But after Times story, Black said, “It has sadly become clear to me that I was misled by a friend. I apologise to all of those I’ve let down by having Steve around them.”
Munn said that she was left confused after her co-stars — Keegan-Michael Key, Trevante Rhodes, and Boyd Holbrook — gave a standing ovation for the director after the film’s premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival. “I looked back and I see the guys standing up, and I was just confused, because I hadn’t heard from them during the day. Everybody else was sitting down — it wasn’t like this massive standing ovation for him,” the 38-year-old actor told Vanity Fair. “I felt it was still appropriate to clap and cheer, but to actually make that gesture to stand up, especially in this moment... and privately I knew that no one reached out to me to say, ‘Are you OK?’ It did feel bad,” she added.
The actor said that one of her co-stars walked out of an interview with her and others backed out of scheduled press interactions. The actor said that she privately encouraged them to talk about the issue but none of them responded.
“I wanted them to not be blindsided the way I was, and I encouraged them to put out a statement once the LA Times reached out to us. I was surprised that none of them did. Again that’s their prerogative.
“Right now the reality is that there will be people who say they support Time’s Up (a campaign to promote victims to speak out against predators), but there will be people in Time’s Up who aren’t really down with the cause,” Munn said.
Right now the reality is that there will be people who say they support Time’s Up (a campaign to promote victims to speak out against predators), but there will be people who aren’t really down with the cause.
OLIVIA MUNN ACTOR