Summary
- Recent allegations of misconduct against Vincent Gallo threaten to end his career in the movie industry.
- Gallo’s treatment of actresses during auditions for
The Policeman
involved degrading comments and intimidation, raising concerns about his behavior. - The production company claims that the events were consensual and evaluated by a professional intimacy coordinator, but further investigation will determine the consequences for Gallo.
The following article contains mature themes that some readers may find disturbing.
There’s a right way and a wrong to build press for a film, and if the early stories coming out of Rolling Stone Magazine are credible, it could mean disaster for the crime thriller The Policeman. Directed by Jordan Gertner and starring James Franco and Vincent Gallo, the new project has been the target of some alarming claims by at least three actresses, each seeming to corroborate the tone and substance of each other’s complaints. Though the American-born Gallo has not been in the good graces of the mainstream movie business for decades, often receiving more accolades and film offers abroad than in his native country, he’s still managed to land gigs — more on that in a second. However, the current litany of claims could end the artist’s long, scandal-laden career.
Nearing 30 years as a feature-length director, he’s not mellowed as he hit his sixties. The constant controversies differentiate the verbose actor in a business specializing in bland brand management and dedicated “damage control” PR teams on-call 24 hours a day. Separating the real human being from the performance artist is difficult, Gallo leaning into the catty director archetype, rolling his eyes at all the supposed phonies and nepotists he claims run Hollywood.
The award-winning writer, actor, and director has thus far weathered storms with agility, cultivating renown as one of the most talented yet loathed figures in all of the acting profession. However, if the stories are true, the mystique is starting to wear thin, as he is rapidly becoming persona non grata in the movie world. Depending on how these charges shake out, this scandal might finally spell the end of a career spent living on the fringes of the industry.
“In order to truly tell the story in an ‘accurate way,’ he needed actresses who were willing to have their ‘minds and bodies be 100 percent dominated by him’ from the moment they arrived on set.”
Inciting Incidents With Vincent Gallo
In January of this year, reports began to pop up, scrutinizing Gallo’s interaction with young women. It is alleged that in the audition phase of his newest crime biopic, Gallo made several degrading comments and intimidated women. Here is one example from an audition with an actress referred to as ‘Jane,’ who recounts what Gallo allegedly said to her:
“I may ask you to suck my **** on screen, and I want an actress who is not going to put up a fight about that. You’re going to be offended by what I ask you, but I don’t want any of your personal feminist values. You don’t want to do this, you don’t think it’s fair, but you know what? The victim didn’t have a choice, and neither will you as the actress […] Of course we can’t actually have you give me head on screen, but the point is that I want someone who will not stop production to call their agent, or complain, etc. because they are offended.”
The sexual nature of the complaint spurred SAG-AFTRA to launch an inquiry into the behavior of Gallo, with three women coming forward. Their identities were omitted from the Rolling Stone article, which broke the story; their right to anonymity was also protected under the union’s membership rules concerning individuals reporting coercion or abuse. Based on initial reporting by Deadline, the allegations did not stop the shooting nor interfere with a planned launch or the casting, yet SAG-AFTRA told reporters that it would “continue to monitor and investigate” as the movie continued through post-production.
Actor James Franco is not implicated in any of these allegations, and this matter is not connected to his
$2.2 million settlement
in 2021 related to sexual exploitation claims. For more about Franco’s specific situation, watch our video below.
Triangulating the various available accounts from the actresses on set, we get a sense of an actor (Gallo was not in charge of director duties for this film) seeking to promote a very particular type of method-acting, where he wished his fellow actors to live out the panic and helplessness of the victims they were vying to portray. As he told ‘Jane,’ “In order to truly tell the story in an ‘accurate way,’ he needed actresses who were willing to have their ‘minds and bodies be 100 percent dominated by him’ from the moment they arrived on set.”
The film in question where the rumored events are purported to have taken place, The Policeman, explores the crimes of a Californian serial killer known as the “Golden State Killer.” One actress, cited in the investigation, alleges that Gallo told her, “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.” In an act of improvisation, she claims he threatened her and compelled her to submit to sexual acts, recounting that Gallo berated her: “I have all the power. You have no control, I am in complete control” — the actor insinuating they had no recourse if they wished to be hired for the role. If true, his actions would potentially violate two separate rules under the SAG member rules.
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“I kept my mouth shut for a really long time about a lot of sexual harassment and intimidation that I received the first two seasons of the show.”
The Producers Respond
Further digging by Indiewire also revealed that the auditions would encompass a gamut of humiliating and possibly dangerous acts, not limited to the actresses being bound and assaulted. The occurrences in question were said to have occurred last November in Portland, Oregon, a month before production.
The production company in charge, Pacific Media Productions, stresses that the events were purely consensual and evaluated by a professional intimacy coordinator to ensure that they were compliant with industry standards. The findings of SAG-AFTRA will determine if the allegations meet the requirement for expulsion or financial damages.
The organization offers a “reporting platform” with an extra option to report anonymously. Misconduct claims fall under the member rules, barring “sexually abusive conduct of any kind, including discriminatory conduct,” while it is also important to keep in mind the regulations under the Standards and Protocols for the Use of Intimacy Coordinators, which were put in place specifically to prevent this sort of scenario, to begin with. Whether these reported actions legally qualify as either “abusive” or “discriminatory conduct” could prove more complex than it initially appears.
These interactions are the basis of the claims of the unidentified actress, referred to only as “Emily” by Rolling Stone. The news outlet also reported another actress making similar claims of misconduct against Gallo. Based on the witness accounts of others in the auditioning process, his treatment of actresses was common, hardly an isolated incident or misunderstanding. A second party accused Gallo of telling her he wished to have a woman who could play her part without qualms or who’d “stop production to call their agent or complain.”
Gallo nor his representation formally addressed any of these assertions, but, as of writing, he remains attached to the movie. At this point, it is unclear what other new evidence has emerged since January or how it will affect the film’s future release or possible re-shoots.
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The Most Despised Man in Hollywood?
From his earliest directing work, 1998’s Buffalo ’66, his relationship with his female colleagues has been wrought with ill will and mutual distrust. Christina Ricci and Gallo traded barbs after the film’s successful critical reception, belying the dark persona Gallo would acquire. In a 2015 interview with The Huffington Post, Ricci remembered her Buffalo ’66 experience as erratic, explaining, “I spent most of that movie trapped in a car with a raving lunatic.”
Ricci, then an underage actress, was denied the right to have a parent or guardian on set to ensure her best interests. She vented her frustration but was seemingly justified in her views as Gallo denigrated the actress with epithets, dismissing her as “a puppet” that did what “I told her what to do, and she did it.” It is impossible to deny the man is his own worst enemy, refusing to play nice with anyone. Though some of those incendiary private conversations were leaked without his knowledge, and he fosters a reputation of playing up his image as a deranged narcissist, making it more challenging to judge Gallo’s real demeanor or motivations, kissing Francis Ford Coppola’s butt one minute and stabbing him in the back the next.
Over the last 20 or so years, he has consistently been one of the few legitimately outsider directors, getting into petty spats with film critics for bad reviews (always a good look) and suing the city of Los Angeles. Despite all the bad press, Gallo either seeks it out or takes it in stride.
According to a 2012 New York Times piece, it has been acknowledged that he doesn’t care if his films go unwatched or even undistributed, and he said to have removed one of his movies from public viewing when it received dicey early feedback. Alienating himself for decades, Gallo had slowly crawled his way back into the industry. 2021’s partnership with The Daily Wire (who identify as being anti-Hollywood) resulted in the thriller Shut In, his first foray in front of the camera in years, earning glowing reviews in a film laughed at by critics. Gallo has never escaped from the rumors and whispers of his boorish behavior in the past. Instead, he appears to have embraced the reputation.
