Blind Item #7 - Jim Field Smith Blind Item

I was once dissuaded from hiring Actor X because other actors I was meeting for other roles had heard X might be attached to the project and had said unequivocally they would not work on the project in those circumstances. There were no criminal allegations against X, but rather a pattern of behavior that several people had either noticed or been personally subjected to.

When I asked these people why this wasn’t common knowledge, they said that speaking up didn’t seem to make a difference.

This was really troubling. After not much deliberation, the casting director and I decided not only to cease negotiations with X, but also more importantly to be very open and honest about why we were doing so.

I was then contacted directly by X. Calmly and – it must be said, somewhat convincingly – they wanted to reassure me that anything I might have heard about them was just gossip. But nonetheless they were keen to know who my “sources” were.

When I refused to disclose them, X started listing several possible suspects – none of whom, tellingly, were the original sources, thus convincing me we had made the right decision.

But of course several years later X is still working, in front of and behind camera. Those that had expressed their concerns originally were all right about one thing for sure – speaking up didn’t seem to make a difference.