Vertigo star Kim Novak was not happy that Sydney Sweeney almost played her

Specifically, that means Euphoria‘s Sydney Sweeney, who was attached, for a time, to a film titled Scandalous!, about Novak’s romantic relationship with Sammy Davis Jr. in the 1950s. And while the film—which would have also reportedly starred The Long Walk‘s David Jonsson as Davis—has apparently stalled out, Novak has made it clear that she wasn’t wild about Sweeney as a pick for playing her, on either an aesthetic or a conceptual level. “I never would have approved,” Novak said of the casting, stating, a bit bluntly, that part of her objection was that Sweeney “sticks out so much above the waist.” But even beyond those obstructions, Novak seems to feel that the mere casting of the Housemaid star betrayed a failure of priorities for the project, which was set to be the directorial debut of actor Colman Domingo. 

Emphasizing that her relationship with Davis was rooted in them having “so much in common”—both were attempting to get out of boxes that 1950s Hollywood kept insisting on putting them in—Novak says that she thinks casting Sweeney would inherently tilt the movie to focus more on the sexual aspect of their relationship, to the detriment of that connection. “There’s no way it wouldn’t be a sexual relationship because Sydney Sweeney looks sexy all the time,” Novak ultimately concludes. “She was totally wrong to play me.” Sweeney clearly didn’t agree; Deadline noted back when the project was being talked about as an active concern last May that she was one of the people moving behind the scenes to get it made.

Kim Novak’s Vertigo debuted at the Venice Film Festival last September; no word yet on when it’ll get a wider release date.