Oscar-winning film producer Scott Rudin has been persona-non-grata ever since allegations of mental, emotional, and physical abuse against both colleges and employees were revealed last year by THR, a piece that had been apparently years in the making. After the revelations, Rudin was subsequently removed from many Hollywood projects and folks in the know like Annapurna Pictures‘ Megan Ellison stated on Twitter that the story revealed in the trades “barely scratches the surface” of Rudin’s horrible behavior.
Vanity Fair has now spoken with writer/director Aaron Sorkin, who has worked with Rudin many times over the years, including the current Broadway incarnation of “To Kill A Mocking Bird.” In a candid interview, Sorkin said he believes Rudin “got what he deserved.” Also, referring to his own experiences with Rudin as “high class of bullying” but stopped short of giving clear examples of what that looked like.
Sorkin suggested he never personally witnessed physical abuse, “Everybody did not know. I certainly didn’t know, and I don’t know anybody who knew. First of all, I have my own experience with Scott, and it’s a higher class of bullying, but I get it. The stories that I had heard over the last 12 years were the kinds of things that—they could have been scenes from ‘The Devil Wears Prada,’ there was no violence. There’s nothing physical at all in the stories that I heard. Had I known, there’s no chance I would’ve tolerated it, there’s no chance [theater director] Bart Sher would’ve tolerated it, that Jeff Daniels would’ve tolerated it. So we didn’t know. And once we did, we did something about it.”
“Listen, I think Scott got what he deserves,” Sorkin told Vanity Fair when asked to give personal examples of abuse from Scott Rudin after a follow-up question. “He’s lying flat on the mat right now, and I don’t know how it’s helpful for me to stand on his torso and kind of jump up and down.”
The revelations of high-profile Hollywood producers such as Scott Rudin and Harvey Weinstein have highlighted a huge issue in Hollywood: the film and television industry isn’t necessarily a safe space and a huge amount of abuse rolls downhill. Many people haven’t felt safe to voice their concerns about abuse and victims of sexual or physical assault have lived in fear or professional reprisal at the hands of powerful, vindictive men. It’s an abusive cycle that’s only recently been semi-broken. Hopefully, moving forward victims will feel more comfortable going to the press to share their stories, but clearly, more work needs to be done in fostering an environment where everyone feels safe to speak out.
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One of the more frustrating things, while a lot of these inside stories of bad behavior are well circulated within Hollywood channels, the public for the most part is kept in the dark. The press tries and do their part and are often well-aware of the stories too, but can’t speak to rumors and are hampered by their own concern of reprisal, legal or otherwise, and aren’t always able to get scared people to speak on the record about these incidents and crack the story. Thus the behavior runs unchecked for years. In the post #MeToo, post-Weinstein/Rudin era, that’s slowly changing, but again, a better environment needs to be fostered all around.