Ellen Barkin has recently exposed a famous director for allegedly "ripping off" a pubic wig during a nude scene.
The 68-year-old actress opened up about the difficulties of being a young actress in a new interview with HuffPost, emphasizing that there was a lot of misogyny, sexism, and harassment in the industry.
"It’s very misogynistic," Barkin said. "'Offbeat' has to do with — when I first started to make films, my looks took up a large portion of my interviews, negatively. So I was just ripped apart physically in interviews."
The actress went on to say how she was considered "unconventionally pretty" - a backhanded compliment for those who have ever had the displeasure of receiving it.
"It was like, 'She looks like she just did eight rounds with Muhammad Ali,'" Barkin explained. "'Who punched her in her eyes? Why are they so small? Who knocked her mouth out of joint?'"
Despite all the controversy around her appearance, the Drop Dead Gorgeous star was still "proud" that she managed to make a career for herself.
"...All of a sudden, I wasn’t the overlooked girlfriend or the wife no one wanted," Barkin told the outlet. "I was the object of desire. And once that happened, then all the good parts went out the window.
"I was typecast first as the ugly girlfriend," she said. "And then I went right into the voracious sex symbol, and then I went to mean old lady. So it makes perfect sense — man’s view of me."
And it seems as though the misogyny only got worse as she got older.
The actress revealed that while she was filming her 1989 neo-noir thriller titled 'Sea of Love', the director, Harold Becker, allegedly decided to violate the actress by "ripping off" her pubic wig - known as a merkin - during a scene.
"What was I going to do when [director] Harold Becker on 'Sea of Love' walks over and literally rips my merkin off, taking some pubic hair with him and saying: 'What do you need this for? Nobody’s looking at you,'" she recalled, adding that the alleged incident occurred during a "difficult, nude scene" alongside her co-star Al Pacino.
"This is what [the industry’s] like," Barkin added. "And I had an easy time with it, believe me."
Elsewhere in the interview, she opened up about wanting to leave her role on TNT’s Animal Kingdom due to the "disrespectful" behavior displayed by the men working there.
"I had been asking to leave for four years. It was not a pleasant place to work." Barkin said. "Want to talk about treating women disrespectfully?... Men used to come in my trailer and just scream at me. How’s that? With me pushing them out the door saying, 'Get out of my trailer.' That’s what it was like for me to go to work.
"I was like, 'Wow, I hate these men,'" Barkin concluded. "Most of them were just like little boys."
Barkin has been speaking out against sexism for years now.
In one viral online altercation that took place back in 2018, she called out Terry Gilliam after his controversial remarks about the #MeToo and Time’s Up movement as per the Independent.
At the time William waded in on the Harvey Weinstein scandal, stating: "I think some people did very well out of meeting with Harvey and others didn’t. The ones who did knew what they were doing."
He also defended Matt Damon whom he believes fell victim to the aforementioned "mob rule."
"I feel sorry for [him]," he added. "He came out and said all men are not rapists, and he got beaten to death. The mob is out there, they are carrying their torches and they are going to burn down Frankenstein’s castle."
Barkin hit back with "My hard-won advice: never get into an elevator alone with [Terry Gilliam]" though she didn't elaborate on exactly what she meant by her tweet.