Ashley Judd led a cast of what would turn out to be dozens of actresses in accusing Harvey Weinstein of decades of sexual harassment and abuse in The New York Times’ damning and dam-breaking Oct. 5 investigation. That same night saw the premiere at the United Nations of an indie drama she starred in, Trafficked, about the modern international sex trade.
Now that film is itself at the center of its own fierce debate regarding the troubling verisimilitude of its casting process. The Hollywood Reporter has learned that producers quietly removed its director, Will Wallace, from the project during postproduction over a disagreement involving the depiction of rape. And, in the #MeToo movement that’s emerged in the wake of the Weinstein revelations, a dispute has broken out over whether a small group audition callback session simulating a brothel scenario was inappropriately handled, to the unnecessary physical and emotional detriment of performers who participated in the hope of landing a key role in the project.
One actress, Sanchita Malik, then 20, contacted SAG-AFTRA the day after attending the session at a Hollywood rehearsal space May 20, 2015, to convey her displeasure. (She subsequently filed a lengthy written grievance with the actors’ union.) In the statement, which she briefly posted on Facebook in October (prompted by the Weinstein revelations) before Trafficked’s legal counsel threatened action if she didn’t remove it, Malik claimed she was surprised to learn upon her arrival that day that she would not only be reading opposite another woman in a prepared scene, but also would be participating in an extended exercise in which male counterparts (including the already-cast Jason London), acting alternately as slave owners and brothel clients, were coached to replicate harassment and assault — within certain parameters, including a prohibition on touching breasts and genitals.
Still, Malik alleged, the scenario played out with her hair pulled, neck licked, body pushed against a wall and a fellow actor simulating rape by “pretending to force his penis in me.” She added, “He was making grunting sounds and I was just crying and laying there.” Malik tells THR she suffered from chronic panic attacks long afterward, which required therapy.