Actress Gal Gadot confirmed in an interview on Israeli television this week that she was bullied by director Joss Whedon during the filming of Justice League. Gadot played the role of Diana Prince / Wonder Woman in the superhero flick distributed by Warner Bros Pictures.
In her interview with N12 News, Gadot told Yuna Leibzon that Whedon “kind of threatened my career and said if I did something he would make my career miserable.” The dispute arose when Whedon tried to dissuade Gadot from changing lines that would make her character less aggressive than her earlier Wonder Woman role.
The Hollywood Reporter had earlier published a story alleging Whedon’s “toxic behavior on set” and claiming that Gadot wanted to make the script changes “to make [her] character flow from one movie to the next.”
According to this article, a witness to the incident had told investigators that “Joss was bragging that he’s had it out with Gal. He told her he’s the writer and she’s going to shut up and say the lines and he can make her look incredibly stupid in this movie.”
Gadot has been noticeably circumspect about the situation. As reported in Deadline, “Gadot has previously acknowledged her own run-in with Whedon. But she merely said at the time she had an ‘experience’ with him, ‘which wasn’t the best one, but I took care of it there and when it happened. I took it to the higher-ups.’”
Whedon has denied the allegations, but Warner Media confirmed that “remedial action” was taken after an internal investigation, while offering no further specifics.
Gadot is not the only performer to have been critical of Joss Whedon’s behavior. Earlier, actor Ray Fisher tweeted that the director was responsible for “gross, abusive, unprofessional, and completely unacceptable conduct” during the filming of Justice League. Following suit, actress Charisma Carpenter, who had roles in Whedon’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, tweeted that she too had been traumatized by his emotional abuse on the set.
