Olivia Munn Shares Her Experience with a Challenging Male Co-Star on Set
Actress Olivia Munn recently shared insights into her experiences collaborating with strong male colleagues in Hollywood, illustrating the challenges female characters often face on screen.
During a discussion on The Drew Barrymore Show, Munn recounted an incident involving a male co-star who disrupted filming because he was uncomfortable with her character’s role in saving his.
“There have been a few times where I’ve been filming something, and my character was either like CIA, or a cop, or something,” Munn explained. “And there’s been scenes where my character has been the one to save the other character.”
One particular scene in a bunker highlighted this tension. Munn described how, according to the script, her character was supposed to safeguard her co-star and ultimately save him from an imminent threat. However, her co-star seemed unaware of this plot point. “I remember I was in this bunker once. And if you read the script, it was that he was guarding his side, I was guarding my side, then we switch sides… So, I shoot him. And then we’re about to shoot, and somehow—I guess he didn’t read the script— and in that moment, he realized, ‘Wait, wait, wait. Hold on. She can’t save me. No, no. She can’t save me,’” she recalled.
Munn further detailed the aftermath of the situation, saying, “And then everything stops down. There was no insecurity about being obnoxious and everyone hearing this and being like, ‘She can’t save me! We’re not doing this!’ And he was combative with the director.”
After 45 minutes of halted filming, Munn proposed a solution. “I told him, ‘Okay, how about instead of my character saving you, it’s just is that we switch because it’s time for us to switch and so this is my guy to get.’ And he was like, ‘Okay.’”
“Now here’s the interesting thing: nothing changed. It’s just what he thought. I was doing the exact same thing,” Munn added.
Munn currently stars as Samantha Levitt in Season 2 of Your Friends & Neighbors, with new episodes streaming Fridays on Apple TV+.
