Anna Faris Says a Male Director Sexually Harassed Her on Set

Anna Faris is the latest actress to open up about sexual harassment in Hollywood. The House Bunny star revealed on her podcast, Anna Faris Is Unqualified, Tuesday that she had a negative experience with a male director early on in her career.

“I was doing a scene where I was on a ladder and I was supposed to be taking books off a shelf and he slapped my ass in front of the crew so hard,” Faris said. “And all I could do was giggle.”

“I remember looking around and I remember seeing the crew members being like, ‘Wait, what are you going to do about that? That seemed weird.’ And that’s how I dismissed it,” Faris continued. “I was like, ‘Well, this isn’t a thing. Like, it’s not that big of a deal. Buck up, Faris. Like, just giggle.’ But it made me feel small. He wouldn’t have done that to the lead male.”

The actress says that laughing it off was the expected response. “We’re conditioned to giggle,” she said. “But also, if we were to do anything else, we’d be labeled a bitch or difficult. That would be the best of circumstances. I guess what I do is I laugh. It puts everyone else at ease when I feel incredibly uncomfortable. That’s the defense model you go into.”

That isn’t the only time Faris experienced sexual harassment in the industry. The same director reportedly told her agent that she was hired for the project not for her acting ability but for her “great legs.”

“Listen, that’s a fucking great compliment. I like my legs,” she said. “But that sort of informed my whole experience with that whole project. I don’t think the male lead got hired because he had great legs. Therefore I felt like I’m hired because of these elements—not because of [talent].”