io9.gizmodo.com: At last night’s LA premiere of his new film, The Predator, director Shane Black finally spoke in public about the ongoing controversy concerning his decision to cast his one-time friend, Steven Wilder Striegel (a convicted sex offender), in the movie without informing the cast or studio.
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This article brings up an important point that a lot of people in our industry forget because of the way things have always been done. that point being, how do actors really get hired? Is there any sort of background check or is it really just about who you know and that's it. Well, this article makes it obvious that even in such a big industry like Hollywood, there is no sort of background check whatsoever. Perhaps this is one of the reasons why our industry has so much trouble with these issues. If all actors were given some sort of background check, then we could prevent situations like this and bad people from being a part of our industry.
Given the circumstances, with issues regarding sexual assault and sexism in the theater community, a matter like this cannot be ignored. Although people have been raising awareness and advocating for women’s rights, there is still a lot of improvements to be done- this being one of them. I couldn’t imagine being on a set and not knowing that I was in the presence of a former sex offender. The formal definition for a sex offender is: “A sex offender is a person who has committed a sex crime”. To any person, this information would be scary, let alone working with someone who is a registered sex offender. Background checks are something that is mandatory when working with a person, and in this case, it is evident that there was information missing and miscommunicated. The fact that people working with a convicted felon did not have any knowledge of this person's capabilities is dangerous and inconsiderate. Yes, people make mistakes, but a mistake like this is unforgettable. It is the director’s job to cast the right people to fit a certain role, but casting another sex offender does not count as a mistake. I hope that this does not happen again and that everyone who worked on The Predator is safe.
The premise of this controversy is so wildly infuriating! Not a single person working on this movie thought to check this? You can find the sex offender registry online and within less than two minutes I found him on the registry, address, crime, weight, eye color, DOB, picture, and all. And this is certainly not the first movie WIlder has been apart of since his conviction. He has also been in Iron Man 3 and The Nice Guys, both because of his friendship with Black. The director put everybody on all three sets in way of harm. And not just those working there, anyone who brought their children to a set, unknowingly brought their children in way of harm. The actor in question must also apologize, and do some serious soul searching and publicly apologize for withholding information (and in my opinion retire, why should he get to be a role model for our children on tv). I am also disappointed in the clear lack of oversight from Fox Studios. There is 88 million dollars going into Predator and none of that was devoted to preventing something like this? (Wikipedia) From a business standpoint that seems illogical; a public relations nightmare like this just as the movie opens will no doubt effect sales and word of mouth reviews. Furthermore, at this point what is supposed to happen to this movie. How can the public willingly support a movie that has such controversy?
This is a very disappointing and sad situation. I believe that more efforts need to be put into checking the background of actors before they are hired. I do not agree with the idea that the director did not have a full grasp of the conviction of his friend. Even if he didn’t, because there would have been interactions with people o his set who would have felt uncomfortable with this individual around, a lot more effort should have been put in. It has become a thing in the industry to solve the problem after the damage has been done. The industry has to become proactive in dealing with issues like this and not after a lot of pressure has been put on by the public.
This whole situation seems like it was handled very poorly by both the studio and the director. The director has been saying that he didn’t fully understand the extent of his friend’s crimes, but personally I don’t buy that for a second. Like Maggie said, it only takes a few minutes to put his name into the sex offender registry and to find out what his crimes were. I’m also very disheartened that there was no sort of background check completed on him before he was cast on the studio’s end. In the wake of the Me Too movement I assumed that these companies would try to make themselves much more aware of this, but it is obvious that there is still a lot of work to do in this area. It is a very good thing that Olivia Munn had the courage to make a stand about this, but I wish that it didn’t have to come from a cast member. Executives should be making more of an effort to ensure safe working conditions on their films sets, and in my opinion I think that this needs to include thorough background checks for all company members.
This really isn’t that hard of a concept guys. If someone you know is a convicted sex offender, don’t hire them. In fact, maybe you shouldn’t be friends with them at all. Actually you definitely shouldn’t be friends with them at all. And for the network, don’t give your director so much power that they can hire people without going through proper channels. Background check the people you bring on, and then, if they’re a registered sex offender, DON’T HIRE THEM. Everybody at that network, and especially the director, are responsible. And it would be one thing if when this info came to light, they immediately halted production for those scenes, did a background check, and then said “our bad, he’s fired, we messed up and here’s how it won’t happen again”. But they didn’t, and now they should just cut their losses and fix it for the next time.
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