Actor Anna Faris says late Canadian director Ivan Reitman slapped her butt on set | CBC News

The House Bunny actor Anna Faris says late Canadian director Ivan Reitman slapped her butt and yelled at her on the set of a 2006 film.

During a Wednesday episode of her podcast Anna Faris is Unqualified, the 45-year-old actor described two incidents that allegedly occurred on the set of My Super Ex-Girlfriend, a romantic comedy starring Uma Thurman and Luke Wilson that Reitman directed.

“One of my hardest film experiences was with Ivan Reitman,” Faris told her guest, actor-director Lena Dunham. 

Reitman, the Toronto-raised filmmaker best known for directing Ghostbusters and producing National Lampoon’s Animal House was a “reign of terror” and “a yeller” who would bring someone down every day, according to Faris.

“My first day it was me,” she said.

Actor felt angry, hurt, humiliated and defensive 

Before Faris’ first scene, a jar of wig glue was knocked onto her costume, delaying her arrival to the film set by 25 minutes. No one informed Reitman of the mishap and he began yelling at her, Faris said.

“I’m in the middle of the street that’s all lit, it’s a night shoot, and Ivan is just taking me down. … ‘Annie’ — he always called me Annie — ‘You can’t play like that around here!’ “

“I felt angry and hurt and humiliated and defensive,” Faris told Dunham. “Eventually I said, ‘Did no one tell you what happened?’ “

Faris alleged that Reitman touched her inappropriately later that day: “He slapped my ass, too. That was a weird moment.”

CBC News has reached out to Reitman’s family and to Faris’ representatives for comment.

Faris discussed alleged incident in earlier podcast

Faris previously spoke about the alleged inappropriate behaviour during an Oct. 2017 episode of her podcast. She did not name Reitman at the time.

“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 in 2017. “And all I could do was giggle.”

While speaking with Dunham, Faris said that she belongs to a generation of actors who try to “calibrate” their experiences with inappropriate behaviour.

“On the one hand, it wasn’t anything. Whatever; my ass is fine. On the other hand, I did have like 30 people around me … expecting me to do something, and I didn’t,” she said.

Faris is known for starring in the CBS sitcom Mom, playing Cindy Campbell in the Scary Movie franchise and for her lead role in the 2008 cult comedy, The House Bunny.

Reitman died in February 2022 at the age of 75. Raised and based in Toronto, he directed some of the most successful blockbuster comedies of the 1970s and ’80s, including Ghostbusters, Stripes and Meatballs.