Hollywood was once the ultimate goal for many working in thefilmindustry. But between strikes,scandals, and sinister secrets being revealed, Tinseltown seems to be losing some of its sparkle. People are beginning to realize that not all that glitters is gold. Many revelations have come out over the past few years.
Those who were once silent are speaking up. During #MeToo, we heard how some actresses were harassed after being asked to meet with producers, directors, or agents in hotel rooms. We’ve been made aware of discrimination, the lack of inclusivity, and other unsavory aspects of set life.
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When comedian Ricky Gervais took to the stage to host the 2020 Golden Globe awards, the audience wasn’t quite prepared for what would come out of his mouth. Gervais didn’t hold back as he held Hollywood over the coals during an epicroasting session. “You’ll be pleased to know this is the last time I’m hosting these awards, so I don’t care anymore. I’m joking. I never did,” began Gervais. “NBC clearly don’t care either—fifth time. I mean, Kevin Hart was fired from the Oscars for some offensive tweets—hello?”
Gervais took a jab at actors, producers, industry racism, andLeonardo DiCaprio’s penchant for much younger women. Nothing was off-limits as the Brit shamelessly shone a spotlight on the elephants in the room. “If ISIS started a streaming service you’d call your agent, wouldn’t you?” he said to the audience.
The comedian was referring to Woody Allen and Mia Farrow’s son, Satchel Ronan Farrow. He’s the investigative journalist who helped expose producer Harvey Weinstein. Farrow’sreportingearned him a Pulitzer Prize for public service and propelled the #MeToo movement.
Matthew Salleh and Rose Tucker run the Brooklyn-based film production companyUrtext Films. They specialize in documentaries and have traveled the world chasing interesting stories. Their latest filmSlice of Life: The American Dream. In Former Pizza Hutshas just premiered in Sydney, Australia. More on that later. First, we wanted to know their thoughts on Hollywood. And it turns out they have mixed reactions when it comes to Tinseltown…
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“Hollywood isn’t a place, it’s a concept. A film industry where, if you’re connected, things get easier,” says Salleh during our chat. “I’m not convinced Hollywood really exists in the way we used to imagine it. I’m not sure any of the big companies really know how to handle the current media landscape.“The Director and Cinematographer adds that this doesn’t mean he’d turn down an offer from Tinseltown. “They still have money – and I’d happily take that money if they offered it – but a lot of ‘Hollywood’ doesn’t know how to reach audiences anymore,” he told Bored Panda. “That’s why we’ve stayed so independent. So no matter what, we can continue to make films our way, without waiting for Hollywood to come calling.“Tucker agrees. “I think we have very realistic expectations about ‘making it’ in Hollywood,” said the Producer and Sound Recordist. “If Hollywood was to come calling, we would take the call, but it’s not something we have false hope over, particularly in documentary world!”
“Hollywood isn’t a place, it’s a concept. A film industry where, if you’re connected, things get easier,” says Salleh during our chat. “I’m not convinced Hollywood really exists in the way we used to imagine it. I’m not sure any of the big companies really know how to handle the current media landscape.”
The Director and Cinematographer adds that this doesn’t mean he’d turn down an offer from Tinseltown. “They still have money – and I’d happily take that money if they offered it – but a lot of ‘Hollywood’ doesn’t know how to reach audiences anymore,” he told Bored Panda. “That’s why we’ve stayed so independent. So no matter what, we can continue to make films our way, without waiting for Hollywood to come calling.”
Tucker agrees. “I think we have very realistic expectations about ‘making it’ in Hollywood,” said the Producer and Sound Recordist. “If Hollywood was to come calling, we would take the call, but it’s not something we have false hope over, particularly in documentary world!”
I work as a 1st AC or assistant camera on film / tv shoots , the garbage treatment I’ve seen PA’s (Production Assistants) and Interns really boils my blood all the time. This is usually since they are the lowest usually on the command chain and are treated bad and do what many would call b***h work running errands, getting coffee, moving equipment and other things many times these are unpaid positions and are doing this to get experience in. Treat PA’s with respect they may be the lowest on the pole but they are trying to make it like we are and word does travel fast of ill treated crew, and people will remember you. Shout out to my PA’s on shoots thank you guys for helping our operations run smoothly, to cleaning and fetching food for us you guys are the unsung heroes of all shoots big and small.
Without calling out any specific artistHonestly the horrible things that paparazzi scream at celebrities to get a responseIt’s atrocious the horrible and abusive things that they scream in their face for a reaction.
Middle-aged men trolling young girls. It’s a big problem and it’s f*****g sickening to see.
We asked Salleh what he’s heard about Hollywood that left him a bit shook. “I always think about the crazy lengths some filmmakers go to get the perfect shot,” he replied. “I remember hearing the story of Chris Nolan planting entire crops of corn forInterstellar,so he could get his perfect corn field shot. I also recall when Antonioni made his first film in color (Il Deserto Rosso), he had whole fields painted to get the color just right.“The duo says they’ve encountered some pretty crazy things while working in the film industry. “I was never a fan of low-budget film productions that expected the crew to work ridiculously long hours,” said Tucker. “Crew would often wear their lack of sleep as a badge of honor. But in reality, it leads to a decrease in quality of the work, and can be very dangerous.““One of cinema’s greatest cinematographers, Sven Nykvist believed that working when tired made the work useless,” added Salleh. “He even had a bed sitting next to film sets, so he could sleep between shots. And he advocated for shorter filming days.”
We asked Salleh what he’s heard about Hollywood that left him a bit shook. “I always think about the crazy lengths some filmmakers go to get the perfect shot,” he replied. “I remember hearing the story of Chris Nolan planting entire crops of corn forInterstellar,so he could get his perfect corn field shot. I also recall when Antonioni made his first film in color (Il Deserto Rosso), he had whole fields painted to get the color just right.”
The duo says they’ve encountered some pretty crazy things while working in the film industry. “I was never a fan of low-budget film productions that expected the crew to work ridiculously long hours,” said Tucker. “Crew would often wear their lack of sleep as a badge of honor. But in reality, it leads to a decrease in quality of the work, and can be very dangerous.”
“One of cinema’s greatest cinematographers, Sven Nykvist believed that working when tired made the work useless,” added Salleh. “He even had a bed sitting next to film sets, so he could sleep between shots. And he advocated for shorter filming days.”
Production assistant here. Had to sign so many NDAs about celebrities doing hard d***s between takes. The worst was watching them pressure young actresses into joining them. Some of these girls were barely 18.
Commercial shoot with bodybuilders. The producer asked the client on set if they wanted to be oil boys and lube up the bodybuilders. They gladly took up the offer and spent 30 minutes oiling up the bodybuilders, who had no choice but just to take it even though I could tell they weren’t comfortable. At the time, everyone was laughing and joking around, including the bodybuilders, but looking back, it was pretty messed up to put them in that situation.
I don’t work in the industry but know a bunch of people who do. My favorite story is the filming of Black Hawk Down was delayed because Tom Seizmore got a really nasty infection on his face when a Moroccan [sex worker] peed on his face. Apparently that’s the reason he keeps his helmet on the whole movie.Edit: a word.
We were curious to know how and why Tucker and Salleh got into the film industry. “I was always obsessed with film,” explained Salleh. “In college, in Australia, I worked as a video store clerk, in a very fancy video store that rented foreign and arthouse films. I watched thousands of films during that time. That was my only film education; I never attended a day of film school.“He tells us that he eventually dropped out of college to start his own film company. “The first four or five years, I experimented with other filmmakers, producing small low budget films that didn’t really go anywhere. Eventually my partner, Rose and I switched to producing commercials and freelancing to actually earn a living.”
We were curious to know how and why Tucker and Salleh got into the film industry. “I was always obsessed with film,” explained Salleh. “In college, in Australia, I worked as a video store clerk, in a very fancy video store that rented foreign and arthouse films. I watched thousands of films during that time. That was my only film education; I never attended a day of film school.”
He tells us that he eventually dropped out of college to start his own film company. “The first four or five years, I experimented with other filmmakers, producing small low budget films that didn’t really go anywhere. Eventually my partner, Rose and I switched to producing commercials and freelancing to actually earn a living.”
I shared a flight with Gwendoline Christie from LA to London once. She was quiet and didn’t draw any attention to herself. Also, they did her dirty on GOT because she’s so much prettier in person.
Worked on a movie set where a white stunt double showed up for Jonathan Majors and was in blackface. I think the excuse was they couldn’t find a black stunt double in New Mexico but he was (understandably) pissed and it made everyone super uncomfortable.
“I also did not attend film school,” adds Tucker, revealing that she actually has a degree inbiology. “When I met Matthew, I thought it would be a laugh to come out as an extra on one of his short films. Before you know it, I was working my way up through the various roles on set: continuity, first assistant director, and then producing.“Tucker says they started taking the business side of things seriously, a few years later. “We started doing a lot of commercial work to make things sustainable. We always continued working on creative film projects on the side, and discovered where our true passion and skills lie: documentary.”
“I also did not attend film school,” adds Tucker, revealing that she actually has a degree inbiology. “When I met Matthew, I thought it would be a laugh to come out as an extra on one of his short films. Before you know it, I was working my way up through the various roles on set: continuity, first assistant director, and then producing.”
Tucker says they started taking the business side of things seriously, a few years later. “We started doing a lot of commercial work to make things sustainable. We always continued working on creative film projects on the side, and discovered where our true passion and skills lie: documentary.”
I was 20 or 21 and about to board a plane to a film a low budget shoot in Romania. As I was getting into the van to the airport, a producer came up to me with a blank envelope.“Hey, I need you to give this to the producer, Vlad, when you get there.““What is it?""$25,000 in cash. Don’t declare it at customs.“I was a kid, so I did it.
Didn’t firsthand witness this, but I was a production coordinator on a show where one of the cameramen followed an actress back to her hotel room and tried to sexually attack her. Fortunately she was able to fight him off and get help. He was fired and charged, and she quit because she didn’t feel safe anymore. The guy had a 20 year career and I can’t imagine this was the first time he’d done something, but it was definitely the first time anyone found out. Terrifying. I don’t know what happened to the actress after she left the show. I hope she’s doing well.
Salleh says the duo made a few short documentaries on the side of their commercial work. Some did well at film festivals, they told Bored Panda. They got the opportunity to make their first feature documentaryBarbecuein 2017. It gave viewers a glimpse into the barbecue culture around the world.“Upon completing this film, we decided to move from Australia to the U.S. Shortly after moving here, ‘Barbecue’ was selected to premiere at SXSW, a prestigious film festival in Austin, Texas,” he told Bored Panda. “The day after our world premiere, we sold the film to Netflix–our ‘American Dream’ was underway!”
Salleh says the duo made a few short documentaries on the side of their commercial work. Some did well at film festivals, they told Bored Panda. They got the opportunity to make their first feature documentaryBarbecuein 2017. It gave viewers a glimpse into the barbecue culture around the world.
“Upon completing this film, we decided to move from Australia to the U.S. Shortly after moving here, ‘Barbecue’ was selected to premiere at SXSW, a prestigious film festival in Austin, Texas,” he told Bored Panda. “The day after our world premiere, we sold the film to Netflix–our ‘American Dream’ was underway!”
Relatively tame, but gross, worked on a show where the lead would deliberately eat huge amounts of raw garlic, onions, and canned tuna before kissing scenes as a f****d up power play over the actresses who he was partnered with for the scene.
I learned first hand that Marie Osmond is not exactly the God blessed Mormon America thinks she is.
Tucker tells us that since moving to America, they’ve completed two more feature documentaries:We Don’t Deserve Dogs(2020) explores the relationship between humans anddogsaround the world. “And we recently premiered our third feature‘Slice of Life: The American Dream. In Former Pizza Huts.‘The film explores the current-day uses of former Pizza Hut buildings across the U.S. and will be released on streaming in 2025.”
I was working on an Indy film in Vancouver as a line producer’s assistant. The movie was having money problems as it turned out the financing was coming out of the middle east and we almost missed payroll twice. Head of the teamsters, who was also a Hell’s Angels captain sat down with the producer’s.“Hand over your passports, or I’m gonna take you out back and break both your legs. You’ll get them back when everyones been paid what they’re owed”.I was a volunteer at TIFF an an actress had overdosed in the bathroom, was supposed to do a Q&A after the movie. Someone involved with the movie managed to get her functional enough to get through the Q&A before calling an ambulance.
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I do IT for the hilariously rich in LA, so we also work with all kinds of vendors for various home theaters, technology, and random other services. We went to Tom Cruise’s house and he was so off-putting and weird about people having phones on them while in his house. Not even that there was creepy s**t to see, but he kept acting like all of us were plants to try and take pictures of his stuff or things like that. It was very strange.
A major makeup artist had come to do a special event at my store. The store had some of their VIP clients book appointments ahead of time and for about 2 hours she would do 10 minute one on ones with each client which included consulting and answering questions plus applying some makeup. She arrived early and the event began on time and she was super professional throughout it and the clients loved it.After the event was complete, I am going to one of the offices on the side of the Beauty department and I hear some howling kind of crying and I go towards the sound and I see the makeup artist is having a full on breakdown alone on the floor. Her makeup had completely ran down her face and was on her clothes and shoes and the floor. I hid on the side and then I overheard her call someone on the phone and she howled “I can’t do this anymore! I hate pretending I enjoy doing this! If I didn’t need the money I would have stopped years ago. S**t I have to go I think someone is coming.” She hung up and pulled some sort of scarf/wrap out of her bag and wrapped it over herself and put on some oversized sunglasses and got up and walked quickly and I hid on the other side as she left.I felt so sad for her and her situation having to do something she doesn’t really like anymore.
Tucker tells Bored Panda thatSlice of Life: The American Dream. In Former Pizza Hutsis “a portrait of modern-day America, as told through a collection of stories observed within the walls of former Pizza Hut buildings across the country.” The making of the film saw them traveling through the country, in a bid to unearth the best Pizza Hut stories they could find.“We filmed in everything from an LGBTQ+ church in Florida, to a cannabis dispensary in rural Colorado, to a karaoke bar in Texas – and of course, lots of restaurants,” she said, adding that they shot the majority of the film throughout 2023. “It premiered in October 2024 at SXSW Sydney – a new offshoot of the famous SXSW festival in Austin, Texas,” she added.“Our US premiere took place at the prestigious Chicago International Film Festival, and the film is currently continuing to tour the film festival circuit. We plan to release the film on streaming services in 2025.”
Tucker tells Bored Panda thatSlice of Life: The American Dream. In Former Pizza Hutsis “a portrait of modern-day America, as told through a collection of stories observed within the walls of former Pizza Hut buildings across the country.” The making of the film saw them traveling through the country, in a bid to unearth the best Pizza Hut stories they could find.
“We filmed in everything from an LGBTQ+ church in Florida, to a cannabis dispensary in rural Colorado, to a karaoke bar in Texas – and of course, lots of restaurants,” she said, adding that they shot the majority of the film throughout 2023. “It premiered in October 2024 at SXSW Sydney – a new offshoot of the famous SXSW festival in Austin, Texas,” she added.
“Our US premiere took place at the prestigious Chicago International Film Festival, and the film is currently continuing to tour the film festival circuit. We plan to release the film on streaming services in 2025.”
There were active rumors within the Korean film industry that a certain famous Korean actor who tried to make it big in Hollywood and appeared in several Hollywood blockbusters was a little too close with his sister. She was always in his trailer and followed him around when he was working in Hollywood. I was thinking it was just a brother being overly protective over his sister, but according to almost everyone I’ve talked to, it’s definitely more than that. Usually I take rumors like this with a grain of salt, but these people were dead serious about the whole affair, as if it’s pretty much common knowledge.The other less disgusting fact is that the actor was pretty close friends with my mom’s friend’s Korean American son and lived with the family for a few weeks or so near LA. And he worked his absolute a*s off to work out his English pronunciations.
I lived there.At the Time P!nk had a little dog namedF****RTome Cruise is super nice to the point of creepy. Like he has dead and intnse eyes simultaneously.
Honestly? Nothing to do with celebrities. The most f****d up thing is watching a 22 year old PA climbing into a big white box truck at the end of a 14 hour shoot at 1 AM and driving back from the boonies after crushing a few beers and a couple bumps. I’ve heard of some bad accidents involving sleep-deprived grunts trying to break in.
Worked as a PA on an end-of-the-world-type show that relocated to filming in Texas way back in the early 2010s. This was my third production working as a PA but first working in the general office production assistant work. I was excited because It was a cool cast of actors - and some people I was a personal fan of. One was a veteran actress from probably the biggest cult tv show of the 2000s (and one of my fav characters on that respective show)Not necessarily f****d up - but more so baffling stuff i heard from colleagues in wardrobe about this actress: that would often have her period in the clothes she wore for filming….repeatedly. And she would act like nothing had happened at the end of the day offilming. Word was she didnt really do anything or try to prevent this from happening….Because of the type of show it was, these clothes often went through aging and dyeing procedures. I know this whole thing around this actress eventually moved from a minor open-secret that crew could giggle (ie. “shes so loopy, hippie-dippie, etc.”) to something way more inconvenient when clothes - beholden to story and filming continuity - had to start getting rewashed, rebought, reaged, redyed…. you name it, which caused tons of redundant or duplicative work on behalf of the crew members (mostly in costuming) as it kept happening very frequently.Never felt like maybe there was a medical issue or anything with this actress - just more so strange in how nonchalant and unembarrassed it all felt - like the way she handled all of this situation was a normal thing.It definitely altered my perception of her to a more neutral fan standpoint.
Not that f****d up, but Andy Garcia punched his co-star in between takes while shooting the incredibly bad film Big Gold Brick.I’m now reflecting that my career in film was pretty tame if that’s the best I’ve got. .
I met Hugo Weaving on set, and said “Hi Hugo, I’m Clem.”“Slim,” he said, and shook my hand.“No, it’s “Clem””, I said.“I had a cat named Slim,” he replied, and kept shaking.That’s nice, Hugo Weaving, but it’s still not my f*****g name.EDIT: I appreciate this isn’t exactly “f****d up”, but I still wanted to share it.
Gave my boss 6 months notice of my upcoming wedding. Hadn’t taken more than 3 days off in 3 years. I asked for 2 weeks, minimum 5 days.I was the only person who did “my” job at this place.Some new “important” project came up and of course I was asked to cut down my PTO.Down to 3 days.The most f****d up part is that I didn’t stand up for myself and let it happen. My first wife and I never had a proper honeymoon.
I was at a brunch with an old British tv star, wife of a then and current movie star. My favorite quote from that day was about her meeting with a landscaper for her home in Hollywood: “I’m just not sure we need the third fountain, at 80 thousand dollars apiece.“Edit I recognize this isn’t in the spirit is the question. Maybe question adjacent though?
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If you’re on a show that travels, lots of hook ups with the locals.
We were being semi-robbed (they wanted to know what was in the grip truck) on an indie movie and I was in my pickup truck with the UPM and he said:“If he pulls a gun will you run him over? Because if not get the f**k out of the driver seat”And I looked at him and I said:“I’ll kill him Pete”And at one point hit the gas to run the robber over. But the UPM stopped me so that we could see how it played out. The robbers eventually left when they realized we didn’t have anything they could easily sell.Earlier that same night, I saw a random guy hit a pole on a Kawasaki ninja at like 90 miles an hour and died right in front of me.I was 18, right outa HS. Been in this business for 13 years!
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