Los Angeles, Apr 29 (IANS): Actress Olivia Munn has revealed that disgraced filmmaker Bryan Singer went missing for a "thyroid issue" while shooting the 2016 movie "X-Men: Apocalypse".
In an interview with variety.com, Munn hinted that the move would not have been tolerated if it had been a female director.
Munn appeared as mutant Psylocke in "X-Men: Apocalypse", which was directed by Singer. The absence of Singer left the production "scrambling" as the director would give his notes to the actors via text messages.
"It's possible (to work with women directors). It's the problem that I always had in this business, way before the #MeToo movement exposed so much. You're in it and you see these people who keep failing up, and they're not that great and you think, aReally?' When we shot 'X-Men', I never shot a huge movie like that before. I didn't know what was right or wrong, but I did know that it seems strange that Bryan Singer could check out and say he had a thyroid issue," Munn said.
The actress continued: "Instead of going to a doctor in Montreal, which is a very high-level, working city, he said he had to go to L.A. And he was gone for about 10 days is my recollection. And he said, Continue. Keep filming'. We'd be on set, I remember there's a big scene that we'd have, and we'd come back from lunch and then one of Bryan's assistants would come up and show us a cell phone with a text message on it."
Munn said his text messages read: "Hey guys. I'm busy right now. But just go ahead and start filming without me."
"And we'd be like, 'OK'. And I never thought any of it was normal, but I didn't realise that other people also thought it wasn't normal. And the other people who thought it wasn't normal would be people at high levels, people who make decisions on whether to hire this person," she said.
Munn was shocked that even after that, Singer was hired by the same studio that released "X-Men" (20th Century Fox) to direct "Bohemian Rhapsody".
The actress added: "Come to find out it is really strange and it wasn't OK. But this person is allowed to continue to go on. Fox still gives him 'Bohemian Rhapsody', and then we all know what happened. I'm saying even before the #MeToo stuff was exposed a" stuff that's really horrendous and just nauseating to be around -- there's also just the bad behavior of people getting away with it. And no one in the world is so talented that it merits disrespecting other people and their time. And there are so many talented people waiting for an opportunity."
The actress feels "if we made way for more of those people and held people accountable, there's so many great human beings out there and directors and artists".
"It's not just with women but with minorities. And representation matters. You don't know if things are possible until you see other people doing it," she added.