Maura Tierney on Ruth Wilson's mysterious The Affair exit

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...: "The work was certainly very demanding for her"

https://www.indiewire.com/2019/08/th...it-1202168093/

Tierney said “um…I don’t know" when asked by Indiewire if she was surprised by Wilson's exit. "People have different tolerances for different things, you know? I’m not surprised by much.” Tierney adds: “The work was certainly very demanding for her. Like, that character was just suffering all the time. I mean, I can’t speculate as to what happened. I’ve been on other shows where other people…No, you know, this show is very specific. And it’s very demanding. And sometimes people have a shelf life for it. I think that’s what I would say.”

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Ruth Wilson left The Affair over an alleged hostile work environment -- with help from Lena Dunham
SOURCE: THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

Wilson has said "there is a much bigger story" to her surprising exit last year before the Showtime drama's final season. The Hollywood Reporter has that story after conducting a number of interviews. "Many say Wilson, who is restrained by an NDA, had long wanted to leave the show because of ongoing frustrations with the nudity required of her, friction with (co-creator and showrunner Sarah) Treem over the direction of her character, and what she ultimately felt was a 'hostile work environment,' later the subject of a previously unreported 2017 investigation by Showtime parent company CBS," according to The Hollywood Reporter's Bryn Elise Sandberg and Kim Masters. "While Wilson was said to have understood that signing on to an adult drama at Showtime called The Affair would likely involve some disrobing, she ultimately took issue with the frequency and nature of certain nude scenes. Sources, many of whom declined to speak on the record, say Wilson was often asked to be unclothed in scenes where there seemed to be no clear creative rationale for the nudity other than for it to be 'titillating,' as one person involved with the production puts it. Another source overheard Wilson ask on set, referring to a male co-star, 'Why do you need to see me and not more of him?'" Wilson felt Treem pressured her to perform frequent nude scenes, according to The Hollywood Reporter, which notes that the show didn't hire an intimacy coordinator until the final season following Wilson's exit. Treem, however, denies she ever pressured performers. "I would never say those things to an actor. That's not who I am," she said. "I am not a manipulative person, and I've always been a feminist," says Treem, noting that she "did everything I could think of to make (Wilson) feel comfortable with these scenes." After years of frustration, Wilson was able to secure her exit from the Showtime series thanks to a September 2016 chance meeting between Jeffrey Reiner, an executive producer and frequent director on the The Affair, and Girls creator Lena Dunham and her colleague Jenni Konner at a restaurant in Montauk, New York. Reiner allegedly praised Dunham for her Girls nudity -- "You would show anything. Even your a**hole" -- and then allegedly asked Dunham if she would speak to Wilson to convince her to "show her t*ts, or at least some vag." Reiner then allegedly pulled out his phone showing a graphic photo of "a mutual friend with a c*ck next to her face." The Hollywood Reporter reports that the image was of Maura Tierney with a nude male body double. The alleged incident was written as a blind item in Dunham and Konner's Lenny Letter, which prompted CBS HR to talk to Reiner, though no action was taken. In February 2017, months before the #MeToo movement kicked off in October 2017, The Hollywood Reporter reports that Wilson raised a complaint with Showtime alleging a hostile work environment. Showtime parent CBS responded by opening an internal investigation. What ended up happening is that the incident between Reiner and Dunham gave Wilson the leverage to negotiate her exit with a substantial payment -- and apparently with some say over her character's fate.

The Affair boss responds to allegations of a "toxic" set, says she tried to "protect" Ruth Wilson

"On a continuous basis throughout Ruth’s time on the show, I tried to protect her and shoot sex scenes safely and respectfully," The Affair co-creator and showrunner Sarah Treem writes in a lengthy Deadline essay responding to The Hollywood Reporter's bombshell report alleging that Wilson left the show over an alleged toxic and hostile work environment and pressure to do nude scenes. Treem writes that she worked through her own trauma in writing Wilson's Alison Lockhart, a character that was "forged in grief and pain." Treem insists she tried to appease Wilson's concerns after they reached a "complicated impasse where I didn’t know how to write the character any differently and she didn’t feel she could play what I was writing." Treem adds: "We didn’t agree on the choices of the character or whether or not a sex scene was necessary to advance the plot, but that is not the same thing as not respecting or supporting an actress’s need to feel safe in her work environment, which is something I always take incredibly seriously." Treem also writes that Showtime wasn't much help after the alleged incident where The Affair executive producer and director Jeffrey Reiner tried to convince Lena Dunham to talk to Wilson about nude scenes while showing her a photo of Maura Tierney next to a nude male body double. Treem writes that she "repeatedly urged Showtime to do something. I wanted to shut down production, do sensitivity training, address the cast and crew and apologize for what had occurred. But instead, I was told to stick to certain talking points and let the network handle the response. By the time the third season was over, Showtime executives told me to write Ruth out of the show." Treem concludes her essay by writing: "I have given my entire professional life to confronting the patriarchy and celebrating women’s narratives through my writing. Yes, I know women can be chauvinists and there is misogyny among women, but that is simply not what happened here. When I asked for more help at the end of the first season because I was having difficulty being all things to all people and maintaining a creative vision, I was told I simply needed to be 'more maternal.' As in many things, it is very tough to be a woman and do this job. I did not always agree with Ruth Wilson, but I did always have respect for her craft, her ability and her process and I tried to write her a character deserving of her immense talent. I know she’ll continue to tell the story of complex, multi-faceted, remarkable female characters for the rest of her long career. I plan on doing the same."

The Affair's Sarah Treem seems to be ignorant of why Ruth Wilson quit the show

The Affair co-creator and showrunner's Op-Ed for Deadline last Friday in response to The Hollywood Reporter's bombshell report about Wilson's exit was a tone-deaf defense that didn't address any of the allegations, says Emily Alford. "Rather than addressing complaints about the work environment and allegations that she tried to talk actors into performing nude scenes by complimenting their bodies, Treem seems to suggest that Wilson was simply being difficult," says Alford. She adds: "All in all, the letter reads more like an ars poetica than an attempt to address a work environment that made an actor so uncomfortable that she quit her job on an award-winning series rather than continue daily negotiations around nudity not stipulated in her contract. Treem’s longwinded attempt to defend the concept of her show rather than recognize the complaints of Wilson and many others who spoke to the Reporter speaks more to her priorities than anything she wrote in the op-ed."