WORD AGAINST WORD – In a long profile published by “New York Magazine” this week, the American director denies having abused his power and responds to each actor who has spoken about their collaboration. From Charisma Carpenter to Gal Gadot, passing by Ray Fisher.
Delphine DE FREITAS –
It will have taken almost a year to speak. “The early internet lifted me up, the modern internet pulled me down”, believes Joss Whedon, whose image has slipped from committed feminist to misogynist pariah. Because it was on social networks that everything changed last February.
Charisma Carpenter, unforgettable Cordelia in buffy the vampire slayer and Angel, denounces “abuse of power” of the director on the sets of the two series he created. She details the relentless bullying and “passive-aggressive threats of dismissal” in a very long text, which finds a particular echo among fans of the Slayer.
I was young. I was screaming and sometimes you have to scream
His interpreter, Sarah Michelle Gellar, salutes the courage of Charisma Carpenter and asks “not to be associated forever” to the creator of the series that made her a star. A statement that will seal the nail in Joss Whedon’s coffin in Hollywood. Banished by the profession, he loses his position as showrunner of the series The Nevers and even saw his name disappear from the promotional material made available to journalists. Last spring, he agreed to receive a reporter from the New York Magazine.
The interviews are carried out over several months at his home in Los Angeles. With always the same attention paid to what he says. Joss Whedon says to himself “terrified by every word that comes out of his mouth”, for fear of seeing it misinterpreted. Or distorted. Entitled The Undoing of Joss Whedon – “What caused the loss of Joss Whedon” -, the portrait published this week explains how his childhood left him with complex post-traumatic stress disorder, how he rediscovered himself upon arriving at university and how “his feeling of being disempowered and his constant anxiety” contributed to the birth of Buffy, badass heroine and feminist.
The article returns to the species of “personality cult” which has been forged year after year around the figure of Joss Whedon. “A Guru on the Hill” which also had its moments of crisis, as relayed by Charisma Carpenter about the filming of buffy and Angel. He himself admits that he was not “civilized” at the time. “I was young. I was screaming and sometimes you have to scream. It was a very young cast and it could easily turn into a party”, he says, stressing that he would never intentionally humiliate anyone. He admits he “could get angry” but claims to have never physically abused anyone.
Gal Gadot would have misunderstood it because “English is not his mother tongue”
No, he didn’t “not polite” with Charisma Carpenter after finding out she was pregnant. But he didn’t tell her she was “fat”, as she says. The memories he keeps of their collaboration are “delicious and lovely”. “She sometimes struggled with her lyrics, but no one could tackle a punchline harder than her”, he slips. On the other hand, he has no memory of an event reported by Michelle Tratchenberg, 16 years old at the time.
The one who played Dawn, Buffy’s sister, revealed on Instagram that Joss Whedon was not allowed to be alone with her in a room on set. The director claims not to have “no idea what she’s talking about”. A source close to the actress explains to the magazine that it was a “informal rule” set up after a face-to-face interview which “shaken” the teenager. A rule that the director was perhaps not even aware of, according to the author of the article.
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Joss Whedon, on the other hand, took note of Gal Gadot’s remarks. The Israeli actress assured last year that he had it “threatened” of “rot his career” during the reshoots of Justice League, the superhero film in which she plays Wonder Woman. “I don’t threaten people. Who does that?”, retorts the director, who succeeded Zack Snyder on the DC Comics project in 2017. He argues that she would have misunderstood him because “English is not his mother tongue”. “I tend to use flowery language when I speak, it’s boring”, he replies. The main interested party, she insists on having “fully understood”.
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Ray Fisher? “A bad actor, in both senses of the word”
His colleague Ray Fisher is the one who really started it all. In July 2020, he accused Joss Whedon of having an attitude “rude, unprofessional and completely unacceptable” with the team of Justice League. An investigation was opened by Warner studios, but the Cyborg interpreter announced a few weeks later that he had been ousted from the following film The Flash. A dismissal which then prompted Charisma Carpenter to deliver her experience.
If the character of Cyborg has disappeared, it is because his story “didn’t make sense” according to Joss Whedon. And because the acting… was bad, which advanced screenings would have confirmed. The director insists that he had a long discussion with his actor, in a friendly and respectful way, about the various changes. Before qualifying Ray Fisher as “malicious force”, “we’re talking about a bad actor in both senses of the word”.