'There is so much sexual harassment on set': Big Sick star Zoe Kazan claims a producer asked her if she 'spat or swallowed' after oral sex and says she was told to replicate erotic facial expressions during auditions

  • Kazan, 33, said the producer laughed it off, but the obscene comments had a damaging effect on her
  • Said this is one of many instances when she's been discriminated against because of her sex
  • Recalled a times when a director asked her and other actresses to give 'b*** job eyes during an audition  

By Dailymail.com Reporter

Published: 21:46 EDT, 9 July 2017 | Updated: 03:43 EDT, 11 July 2017

Big Stick star Zoe Kazan says there is rampant sexual harassment on set, and claims one producer asked if she 'spat or swallowed' after oral sex.

The 33-year-old actress says the the lewd language had a damaging effect on her, even though the producer laughed it off as a joke. 

Kazan said this was just one of many instances when she and other actresses were discriminated against because of their gender.

She recalled times when she'd been asked to give 'b***-job eyes' at auditions.

'I had a producer ask me on set once if I spat or swallowed. At work,' she told The Guardian. 

'He'd say, "Oh, it's a joke ha ha." But he was also paying my check and then watching me from the monitor as I made out with another actor — so when he tells me I look good, it feels different.'

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 Zoe Kazan, 33, - pictured attending a special screening of 'The Big Sick' on July 5 - says a producer once asked her on set if she 'spat or swallowed' during oral sex

 Zoe Kazan, 33, - pictured attending a special screening of 'The Big Sick' on July 5 - says a producer once asked her on set if she 'spat or swallowed' during oral sex

The Big Sick Star also revealed so many of the roles she's offered honor gender conventions. Kazan says her boyfriend of ten years, Paul Dano - pictured - is also in the same quagmire as he is rarely asked to play roles where he is emotional

The Big Sick Star also revealed so many of the roles she's offered honor gender conventions. Kazan says her boyfriend of ten years, Paul Dano - pictured - is also in the same quagmire as he is rarely asked to play roles where he is emotional

'I had a producer ask me on set once if I spat or swallowed. At work,' the star - pictured on the Big Sick set  -said. 'He'd say, "Oh, it's a joke ha ha." 

'I had a producer ask me on set once if I spat or swallowed. At work,' the star - pictured on the Big Sick set  -said. 'He'd say, "Oh, it's a joke ha ha." 

'I have a lot of girlfriends who are amazing actors, and many times we've talked about having to go into a room and give 'b*** job eyes,' she added.

'You know, be flirty with a director or a producer. It's the sense that your sexuality is somehow baked into this situation.'

Kazan also said so many of the roles she's offered fuel stereotypes about men and women. 

The star also compared the range of the characters she's played to that of her boyfriend of 10 years, Paul Dano.

'We talk a lot right now about "toxic masculinity", but it's a real thing,' she said. 

'Paul is a very emotional person... He's very sensitive and the art he responds to is very emotional. And yet, nine times out of ten [in a role], I have to cry, and he rarely has to cry.

'I think once in an audition I had to have a gun and be tough, and his auditions have involved guns or a kind of toughness so many times,' she said.

'I think there's a difference in the range of roles he is offered, compared with the range I have access to.'

Other actresses have also fallen prey to sexists in Hollywood. Earlier this year, Debra Messing recalled an instance when a director stopped a love scene to make a rude comment about her nose.

'I'd never been on a film before. I was doing a love scene with Keanu Reeves,' she said. 

'We started filming and the very famous director screamed 'Cut' and said, "How quickly can we get a plastic surgeon in here? Her nose is ruining my movie." 

Debra Messing - pictured in June -  also recalled during an interview earlier this year when a director made  a sexist comment against her.  She said: 'We started filming and the very famous director screamed 'Cut' and said, "How quickly can we get a plastic surgeon in here? Her nose is ruining my movie"
Beckinsale remembers a director saying she wasn't 'attractive' enough to 'alienate the female audience'

Debra Messing - pictured left in June -  and Kate Beckinsale - right-  also recalled sexist comments against them

'It was a shock. I was so confident coming out of graduate school with my masters in acting. I'd studied in London and I was so well-equipped with skill sets, and then to walk on set and have that happen — I was reduced to an un-Hollywood nose.'

Kate Beckinsale has also not been immune to the discrimination.  She also says  a director, Michael Bay, once made a discriminatory comment while on the set of Pearl Harbour. 

She said: 'Michael was asked why he had chosen Ben [Affleck] and Josh [Hartnett], and he said, 'I have worked with Ben before and I love him, and Josh is so manly and a wonderful actor.' Then when he was asked about me, he'd say, 'Kate wasn't so attractive that she would alienate the female audience.'

Kazan says the discrimination leaves women in a catch-22 because they struggle to voice their discomfort out of fear of being seen as difficult to work with.

' There's so much sexual harassment on set. And there's no HR department. We don't have a redress,' she said. 

'We have our union, but no one ever resorts to that, because you don't want to get a reputation for being difficult… You leave the situation feeling not good about what just happened, but you don't really have the language for why. You feel like, if you said something, it would reflect badly on you.' 

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