Vincent Gallo accused of holding sexually aggressive auditions on Golden State Killer movie

Three female actors reported the controversial director of The Brown Bunny for making sexually aggressive requirements for roles in The Policeman

By Matt Schimkowitz | January 12, 2024 | 1:03am

Aux News Vincent Gallo

Vincent Gallo accused of holding sexually aggressive auditions on Golden State Killer movie

Vincent Gallo Photo: Astrid Stawiarz

Three female actors reported controversial filmmaker Vincent Gallo to the Screen Actors Guild for making sexually explicit comments during the audition process of his new film, The Policeman. Gallo, who gained infamy for receiving unsimulated oral sex from Chloë Sevigny in his film The Brown Bunny, plays Joseph James DeAngelo, a.k.a. The Golden State Killer, in The Policeman and used the character to fulfill his “torture porn fantasies,” according to one of the reports.

Per Rolling Stone’s report, Gallo withheld job offers from actors unless frontrunners for the film submitted to his demands. Gallo is not the film’s director; Policeman was written and directed by Jordan Gertner, and co-stars James Franco, who, like Gallo, has been accused of sexual harassment by former actors and acting students under his direction.

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In the complaint to SAG, one actor writes that Gallow told her, “If I say to suck my dick or I will kill you, I want you, you the person, not you the character, not you the actor, but you, to truly believe you will die if you don’t do as I say. And just like you would in real life, if this were happening to you, I want you to do all of the actions necessary to do that. You won’t actually suck my dick, but you do not have the power, I have all the power. You have no control, I am in complete control.”

Other actors echoed the complaint. Another report sent to SAG states that Gallo required actors to have their “‘minds and bodies be 100 percent dominated by him’ from the moment they arrived on set.” The report states that Gallo wants the actor to “be at the whim of whatever his character decides to do to me at any moment.” One actor decided not to attend a callback after learning of Gallo’s behavior and requirements.

“I may ask you to get nude at any time, and I need an actress who is going to do it, because that’s what the victim would’ve done to stay alive,” one accuser claims Gallo said.

None of these requests, which include physically attacking and restraining actors as well as simulated rape and assault, were discussed prior nor in the presence of an intimacy coordinator. The women say that the director never stepped in to control Gallo and that it seemed like “Vincent’s running the show.”

Reports from the set’s intimacy coordinator state that sexually explicit scenes were handled professionally and “executed within the boundaries of each actor’s consent.”

In a statement to Rolling Stone, a representative for Cast Iron Studios said, “The casting team fought hard behind the scenes for the performers, and the results of these efforts can be attested to by the positive reports from set. We thank the actresses for their courage to come forward, and express our deepest apologies for their experience, which was indeed a first for us, too.”