Allison Williams is reflecting on being referred to as “on-set eye candy” throughout one in every of her first jobs in Hollywood.
The Girls alum, 35, appeared on the “Women Behind the Words” panel on the Nantucket Film Festival final weekend and recalled among the feedback she obtained throughout one in every of her earliest gigs in Hollywood. Appearing alongside filmmaker Nicole Holofcener and actress Michaela Watkins, Williams remembered working as a stand-in on the Martin Scorcese-directed pilot of the HBO crime drama Boardwalk Empire, which aired in 2010.
“There’s like 10 stories fighting their way from my brain to my mouth that I’m trying to keep out of my mouth,” The Perfection actress advised the group, as IndieWire reported. “I guess one of them, just very quickly … people just underestimate your humanity often as a young woman up and coming in our business. I was a stand-in for the pilot of Boardwalk Empire, which was the coolest experience ever, an amazing pilot. It was shot on film. It was incredible. But I was at craft services and a member of the crew came up and said, ‘So what do you do here? You’re the on-set eye candy?’”
Williams went on to say that the change was simply one other instance of misogyny she has skilled all through her profession.
“An actor I later labored with who watched me eat a pastry and stated, ‘Don’t you need to achieve success?’ You know, these sorts of feedback come up inevitably.”
Williams went on to credit her Girls creator and co-star Lena Dunham for serving as a voice of reason in the wake of intense criticism.
“For all the things like that, there’s like Lena who simply so gently, and at mainly my identical age, would usher me by means of this very uncommon expertise and was such an unbelievably proficient author and director, and was ready to simply get me to breathe and decelerate and never do something, and in doing that, simply belief the fabric and belief that the expertise is there,” she recalled.
Back in 2017, Williams told Refinery29 that there have been several experiences throughout her career in which she has been treated differently based on her gender.
“Have there been cases wherein I believe possibly I’ve been handled in a different way as a result of I’m a lady? Yes — mainly by the media,” Williams shared. Despite that, she went on to say that declaring herself as disadvantaged would “be extremely tone-deaf and self-unaware,” as she has been “so lucky.”
“I’ve been disproportionately fortunate and privileged, and I intend to spend the remainder of my life working off that credit score by giving again and paying it ahead,” she added.
She also spoke to Yahoo that year about gender-based bias in the workplace, sharing, “It’s very apparent for me: I see no distinction in the best way I must be seen as knowledgeable girls than the boys in our present must be handled as skilled males. Anyone who’s completely different about that execution gained’t work with me for very lengthy. But I’ve encountered little or no of it personally, however that may very well be as a result of individuals know that I’m not going to stand for it. I’m in a very luxurious place the place I can select who to – or not to – work with based mostly on the best way I really feel that they respect or don’t respect me.”
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