Selma Blair and Rachel McAdams are speaking out and accusing director James Toback of sexual harassment.
During an interview with Vanity Fair published on Thursday, October 26, the actresses recounted their alleged experiences with Tobak, 72.
Blair, 45, claimed that Toback would only take a meeting with her within the walls of his hotel room. Soon after Blair arrived, Toback told her that she had to remove her clothes so he could “see how [her] body moves” and understand “how comfortable” she is with herself so he could train her accordingly.
“I told him I was uncomfortable. But he continued to coax me — saying that this was in no way a come-on. This was part of training,” the Cruel Intentions actress alleged, noting that the director continually commented on her physical appearance after she removed her sweater. “I was so private about my body. I do remember looking down at the script and seeing my bare chest and not being able to focus on a thing but the words and my face being so hot and puffy and feeling so ashamed.”
According to the Legally Blonde star, Toback then asked her if she would have sexual relations with him, and when she refused, he blocked the door and told her, “You have to do this for me. You cannot leave until I have release.” Blair noted that she complied with his alleged instructions in order to “get out of [there] without being raped.”
Blair, who confided in her then-boyfriend about the alleged incident and swore him to secrecy, planned on remaining under a cloak of anonymity. However, the actress eventually decided to speak out against Toback. “I still felt so powerless and scared. I kept thinking, ‘OK, is there a big actress who is going to come out so that she can be the face of this?’ I want to bring as much awareness to this as possible because I want Toback to be held accountable,” Blair told Vanity Fair. “When he called these women liars, and said he didn’t recall meeting them and that the alleged could not be attributed to him, i just felt rage and an obligation to speak publicly now.”
In her own account, McAdams, 38, claimed that when she was 21 and in theater school, Toback invited her to his hotel room late one night to further discuss a potential role for her in Harvard Man. When she arrived, Toback instructed The Notebook starlet to sit on the floor and recite passages from various projects.
McAdams alleged, “Pretty quickly the conversation turned quite sexual and he said, ‘You know, I just have to tell you. I have masturbated countless times today thinking about you since we met at your audition.’”
According to the Mean Girls actress, Toback continued making passes at her and she eventually excused herself. “I was very lucky that he didn’t actually physically assault me in any way,” she said, noting that her agent later told her that Toback had behaved similarly with her other clients. “Sexual harassment is so pervasive, many women seem to have their own story. I just think there is an ‘anything goes’ [attitude] in Hollywood that gets taken too far. And there is a sense that you don’t have to be responsible for your actions — there is just no limit to what you can be subjected to. Thesis to stop. We need to start acknowledging what an epidemic this is, and what a deep-seated problem this is.”
As previously reported, The Los Angeles Times published an expośe on Sunday, October 22, in which more than 38 women accused the Bugsy director of sexual misconduct. On Tuesday, October 24, Julianne Moore and Natalie Morales shared their own alleged interactions with the director.
Toback has since denied all allegations in a statement to the Los Angeles Times, claiming that he never met any of his accusers, and the health issues he has been battling for the last 22 years would have made it “biologically impossible” for him to have done what he was accused of.
