Olivia Munn claims director tried to 'ruin her chances' of getting roles after on set disagreement
The 44-year-old actress has recalled working on HBO series The Newsroom when an incident with unnamed director led to them trying to prevent her from landing future roles.
Appearing on Dax Shepherd's Armchair Expert podcast, she said: "There was a storyline where my character and Tom Sadoski's character are dating and falling in love.
'[The director] kept trying to force me to carry that storyline only on my side. He's like, 'Can you look out at him and smile?'
"And I'm like, 'Why she's busy doing this?' Or, 'Can you stop and snuggle up to him or flirt with him?' Or, 'Can you give him a kiss?' And I'm like, 'This is in the middle of working.' '
Olivia claimed she later found out that the director told a separate movie studio that she'd been difficult and unprofessional on set.
She added: "I was on the one-yard-line for the movie and my manager calls me and says, 'Hey, you're gonna get the role.
"'But first, I guess there's another director who they know and he says that on The Newsroom you were late all the time and really combative'.
'I lived seven minutes from there. I was never late. I was like, 'I know who this is.' He just was trying to bash me.
"And I told my reps, 'Please tell the directors this.' And then I still got the role. But I will always remember that just because of our conflicts of how we approached a role, he wanted to ruin my chances of getting anything else.'
Olivia played economist Sloan Smith opposite Jeff Daniels' Will McAvoy on The Newsroom, which started in 2012 and ran for three seasons.
Elsewhere in the interview, Olivia admitted she was frustrated over being blamed for NFL star Aaron Rodgers' struggles when they dated for three years until 2017.
She explained: "During the time that I was with him, he had three hail marys, I think two NFC championships—not wins—but he made it into the NFC championship, which is very hard.
"No one would want to talk about that. I didn't get credit for any of the wins."
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