Robin Wright recalls getting ‘yelled at’ by ‘very successful’ director

Robin Wright is opening up about a painful experience early in her career that she says still lingers in her memory.

During the September 10 episode of the How to Fail podcast, the 59-year-old actress recalled a moment with a “very successful” director whom she described as “a man who really doesn’t like women.” 

Wright said she was still very young and shy at the time when she traveled with him by helicopter to a film set in the California desert. 

The trip was meant to introduce her to “a very, very famous actor or two” he was working with.

Once she arrived, Wright explained she was “ushered into the trailer” to meet one of the actors and immediately felt out of place. 

“My heart’s palpitating and I’m just sweating. I didn’t know what to say,” she remembered, noting that she expected a proper introduction but instead was met with silence.

“I started to feel like it was my responsibility to start the meeting. I was a baby,” Wright said. 

“He yelled at me and said, ‘Speak.’ I got up out of the trailer and I ran out into the desert, started crying.”

At the time, temperatures were over 100 degrees, and Wright recalled breaking down outside until one of the older, established actors showed her kindness. 

“He came out and saw me squatting in what little shade I got from one side of the car, and I squatted down and I was crying, and he was like, ‘You’re going to get heat stroke,’” she said. 

He then walked her into an air-conditioned production trailer. Wright asked to be driven to the airport, and she left.

Looking back now, Wright admitted that while the story “doesn’t sound very bad,” the way it played out was deeply unsettling for her. 

“The power of it was intense,” she explained.

Now that she has stepped behind the camera herself, Wright said the lesson has stayed with her and shaped the way she treats others on set. 

As a director, she added, she would “never” put someone through an experience like that.

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