Director Ridley Scott is opening up about replacing accused sexual harasser Kevin Spacey in his film All the Money in the World, and so is his former costar, Michelle Williams.
As Scott explains to Entertainment Weekly, he felt he had no choice after Spacey was accused of sexual misconduct by multiple people. All the Money in World was due out December 22nd, and Spacey was starring as billionaire John Paul Getty III, prompting many to wonder how on earth he would manage to pull it off.
“I sat and thought about it and realized, we cannot. You can’t tolerate any kind of behavior like that,” he says. “And it will affect the film. We cannot let one person’s action affect the good work of all these other people. It’s that simple.”It was so simple, he says he didn’t actually tell Spacey (but added that he would have if Spacey had reached out to him to apologize for his behavior).Instead, Scott says he immediately called Christopher Plummer and offered him the role as Getty. He then approached the other actors (who thought the film had wrapped), including Williams and Mark Wahlberg, about reshoots.Williams, 37, tells EW that she was enthusiastically on board. “When this idea was hatched, I immediately started to feel better. This doesn’t do anything to ease the suffering of people who were all too personally affected by Kevin Spacey, but it is our little act of trying to right a wrong. And it sends a message to predators — you can’t get away with this anymore. Something will be done.”In addition to meeting the schedule release date, the film will be finished in time to qualify for the Oscars (December 1st).Spacey, 58, has not responded to most of the allegations, but he did respond to the first, made by actor Anthony Rapp, who last month claimed the Oscar-winner harassed him when he was just 14.At the time, Spacey said he didn’t remember the incident, but apologized and simultaneously came out as gay.