Sarah Jessica Parker reports 'countless' cases of on-set harassment
Sarah Jessica Parker has spoken about “countless” incidents of men behaving inappropriately on film and TV productions, including one with a “big movie star” that was only resolved after her agent threatened she would walk off the set.
In an interview on the NPR show Fresh Air, the Sex and the City star commented on the impact of the #MeToo campaign and said: “It really wasn’t … until about six or eight months ago that I started recognising countless experiences of men behaving poorly, inappropriately … I don’t know why I either wasn’t courageous or more destroyed by some of the things that I was privy to, that I was on the receiving end of.” Parker often felt intimidated, to the extent that she did not feel able to confront her harasser. “No matter how evolved or how modern I thought I was ... I didn’t feel as powerful as the man who was behaving inappropriately … I had every right to say, ‘This is inappropriate.’ I could have felt safe in going to a superior.”
Parker said that one particular situation involved a “very, very big movie star”, whom she did not name. The harassment was only resolved after she asked her agent to intervene, “because I felt I was no longer able to convey how uncomfortable this was making me, how inappropriate it was”.
“Within hours everything had changed … He said to them, ‘If this continues, I have sent her a ticket, a oneway ticket out of this city’ – where I was shooting – ‘and she will not be returning.’”