Why Ruth Wilson quit 'The Affair': Toxic environment, nudity, a graphic photo and needless sex scenes
If you're a fan of the Emmy-nominated Showtime drama, 'The Affair', you may be aware of how actress Ruth Wilson stunned viewers when she quit the show even after winning a Golden Globe award. In a major revelation, insiders have divulged the reason behind her giant step, which includes complaints of a hostile work environment.
Days after her departure, the actress was repeatedly asked why she decided to exit from the show while she was on a press tour for an upcoming film. Without giving a clear answer, she dropped hints and said in a New York Times interview, "It isn't about pay parity, and it wasn't about other jobs, [but] I'm not really allowed to talk about it."
However, when showrunner Sarah Treem was contacted to discover the real reason, there were murmurs of a "much bigger story."
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Wilson was restrained by a non-disclosure agreement and "had long wanted to leave the show because of ongoing frustrations with the nudity required of her, friction with Treem over the direction of her character, and a 'hostile work environment'." Later, the work culture became a serious topic during an unreported 2017 investigation by Showtime parent company CBS.
Initially, Wilson was aware that the adult drama would need her to strip but she soon complained about the nature and frequency of the nudity required for the show. According to the report, sources confirmed she was often asked to expose without any real rationale for the storyline apart from "titillation."
On one occasion, Wilson was overheard asking, "Why do you need to see me and not more of him [referring to a male co-star]?" Of course, she had signed a nudity waiver when she tested for the pilot, but a SAG-AFTRA spokesperson said how performers must still "provide meaningful consent and be treated with respect and dignity during production." With all her inhibitions about the shoot, Wilson was soon labeled "difficult."
"There was a culture problem at the show from the very beginning and a tone-deafness from Sarah Treem about recognizing the position she was putting actors in," one source said. "Over and over again, I witnessed Sarah Treem try to cajole actors to get naked even if they were uncomfortable or not contractually obligated to." The same source also confirmed how she was repeatedly told, "Everyone is waiting for you," or "You look beautiful," to ease her insecurities. "It's things you would think would be coming out of a man's mouth from the 1950s," says the source. "The environment was very toxic."
When Treem was asked if it was true, she denied the allegations. "I would never say those things to an actor. That's not who I am. I am not a manipulative person, and I've always been a feminist," she said, adding she "did everything I could think of to make [Wilson] feel comfortable with these scenes."
"I have devoted my entire professional life to writing and speaking about women's issues, women's causes, women's empowerment and creating strong, complex roles for women in theater and in Hollywood, on- and offscreen," she said. "It's what I think about, what I care about, it's what drives my life and work. The reason I even created The Affair was to illuminate how the female experience of moving through the world is so different from the male one, it's like speaking a second language. The idea that I would ever cultivate an unsafe environment or harass a woman on one of my shows is utterly ridiculous and lacks a grounding in reality."
But insiders have a different account of the entire scenario. According to sources, a complaint was raised when a monitor was left on during shoot that made a sex scene visible to people not involved with the production. In the #MeToo era, an intimacy coordinator is quite common on sets, especially in TV shows and movies that involve adultery. No such person was employed on the sets of 'The Affair' even after constant complaints until the final season.
Moreover, Wilson said no to a scene where she was told to be pushed up against a tree at a yoga retreat by co-star Dominic West. "It was rapey," a source said. "Ruth was very unamused by it." A body double was later employed for the part. Shockingly, Wilson's body double sued Showtime in 2017 for being described as "Alison Sexytime Double."
Wilson finally disconnected herself from the show after a meeting on September 20, 2016, between Jeffrey Reiner, executive producer and frequent director on 'The Affair', and 'Girls' creator Lena Dunham. Producer Jenni Konner described how she was disgusted by the conversation. In a blind item, she recounted how Dunham praised her comfort with nudity in explicit terms. "You would show anything. Even your asshole," he said, according to Konner's piece.
In her post, she also said Reiner "seemed very drunk" and allegedly asked Dunham if she would have dinner alone with Wilson the next night to persuade her to "show her tits, or at least some vag," before he went on to "critique and crudely evaluate the bodies of all the women on his show." At one point, Reiner pulled out his phone to show Dunham a graphic photo of "a mutual friend with a cock next to her face," as Konner described it. Sources say the image was of 'Affair' actress Maura Tierney and a nude male actor working as a body double for actor Josh Stamberg. Reiner declined to comment.
Cleta Ellington, an assistant director on 'The Affair' and a longtime associate of Reiner, said the 2016 Montauk conversation "did not happen as portrayed by Konner." "While this quick, funny conversation took a few explicit twists and turns, Lena was the provocateur in the conversation," says the AD, who first worked with Reiner in 2006 on the NBC series 'Friday Night Lights'. Dunham and Konner did not respond to requests for comment.
The details may differ but both parties agree that a nude photo was shown, which seemed to be taken off either a monitor or a computer. Ellington defends Reiner's possession of the photo, explaining that he had to send it to Stamberg for approval of his body double and that it had already aired on TV. It is, however, unclear why Reiner still had it on his phone a year after the air date. A SAG-AFTRA spokesperson said, if true, the conduct is "outrageous and reprehensible," and that it would "violate the terms of our agreement."