What A-Lister Screamed At Rebecca Ferguson: Hugh Grant? Jake Gyllenhaal? JACOB TREMBLAY?!?

Hollywood is filled with big personalities and opinions, and sometimes movie sets can be fertile environments for fragile egos and creative differences to thrive. Look no further than Lily Tomlin vs. David Russell, or Dwayne Johnson vs. Vin Diesel for a couple of well-documented tempestuous relationships that caused some on-set drama. We can now add Dune actress Rebecca Ferguson and an unnamed co-star to that list, now that Ferguson revealed on the “Reign With Josh Smith” podcast that she worked with an “insecure and angry” co-star who screamed at her on the set.

“I did a film with an absolute idiot of a co-star and this human being was being so insecure and angry because this person couldn’t get the scenes out,” Ferguson revealed. “And I think I was so vulnerable and uncomfortable that I got screamed at and I would cry walking off set.”

“This person would literally look at me in front of the whole crew and say, ‘You call yourself an actor? This is what I have to work with?’ I stood there just breaking because this person was number one on the call sheet, there was no safety net for me. No one had my back.”

Ferguson said that the day after she was screamed at, she stood up for herself and told her co-star, “You get off my set. You can F off. I’m gonna work towards a tennis ball. I never want to see you again.” Though producers told her “You can’t do this to number one. We have to let this person be on set,'” she replied that “the person can turn around and I can act to the back of the head.”

While it’s unacceptable that Ferguson had to go through that experience and fight for any kind of support, making this unnamed actor turn around so she wouldn’t have to look at his face is a pretty great way to put them in their place. But it also begs the question, “WHO DID THIS TO REBECCA FERGUSON?” Ferguson doesn’t give us much to go on, and she is very clear not to use gender pronouns, so all we know is that this actor or actress was number one on the call sheet, and the project was a movie. Let’s take a look at the suspects and WILDLY SPECULATE, shall we?!?

1. Jake Gyllenhaal

   Odds: 3:1

   Of all the people who are number one on the call sheets of Ferguson’s past projects, Jake Gyllenhaal, with whom Ferguson co-starred in 2017’s Life, seems a top contender. For one thing, Gyllenhaal has recently made news for behavior on the set of the film Suddenly, which that film’s director, Thomas Bidegain, described in one instance as “humiliating” and otherwise simply made Gyllenhaal seem erratic. Gyllenhaal also made some snide remarks during the Life press tour, once telling The Guardian that “it seems to me that anybody feels they can be an actor nowadays,” a thought that echoes the insult lobbed at Ferguson, where her co-star asked, “You call yourself an actor?” Plus, the fact that Life is set in zero gravity means that the film required loads of VFX, so in theory, Ferguson could have easily acted opposite a tennis ball and Gyllenhaal could have been added in post.

2. Tom Cruise

   Odds: 1,000:1

   Tom Cruise has co-starred with Ferguson in three films in the Mission: Impossible franchise – Rogue Nation, Fallout, and Dead Reckoning Part One. Ferguson’s character, Ilsa Faust, could easily have been killed off for good in any of the earlier films if Cruise demanded it or if the two had a bad rapport on-set. But on the contrary, Ferguson has spoken in glowing terms about her experience with Cruise, even saying once that they keep in touch when they’re not filming. “I get beautiful little support emails from Tom now and then… he checks up on people,” she said in a 2017 interview. (In the same 2017 interview, Ferguson also spoke with adoration about Hugh Jackman, whom she has worked with twice, calling him a “potpourri of scrumptiousness,” so it feels safe to say we can also rule him out of serious contention.) Still, Cruise has been known to yell on a movie set, so anything is possible.

3. Jacob Tremblay

   Odds: 500:1

   Jacob Tremblay co-starred with Ferguson in Mike Flanagan’s 2019 horror film Dr. Sleep, based on Stephen King’s sequel to The Shining. Full disclosure, I had to turn off Dr. Sleep after about 5 minutes on account of there being one dead baby too many for me. And you know what? I’m glad I know my boundaries, because later in the film, Ferguson’s character Rose The Hat brutally murders a little boy known as Baseball Boy, played by Tremblay, in a way that’s brutal and almost impossible to watch. (But I just did! The things I do for this job!) Tremblay would have been about 12 or 13 at the time of filming, and though he was not #1 on the call sheet for the film, Ferguson confirmed in an interview that his screams of anguish during the scene did actually make her cry, and one could understand where acting opposite a small felt ball would have been preferable. And besides, let’s just enjoy the idea of Mike Flanagan telling Ferguson, “You can’t do this to number one!” in reference to Tremblay.

4. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson

   Odds: 50:1

   Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson was one of the first people to actually come out in support of Ferguson after her accusations toward her anonymous co-star came out. In a Tweet, Johnson, who co-starred with Ferguson in 2014’s Hercules, wrote, “Hate seeing this but love seeing her stand up to bullshit. Rebecca was my guardian angel sent from heaven on our set. I love that woman. I’d like to find out who did this.” On the one hand, it’s great that Johnson was quick to jump in with his support. On the other, Johnson has had his share of ego moments on movie sets, including his aforementioned rivalry with Vin Diesel, and the role he played in tanking the success of Shazam‘s sequel and his own Black Adam franchise. That doesn’t point any fingers at Johnson, but in my cynical brain, I can’t help but wonder about the lady who doth protest too much.

5. Meryl Streep

   Odds: 10,000:1

   Given that Ferguson never specified that the person she accused of bad behavior was a man, that leaves room on our list for all genders. Could this unidentified person be Meryl Streep, with whom Ferguson co-starred in 2016’s Florence Foster Jenkins?? I know that the #FloFoJenksArmy will come at me for this, but one has to at least ask.
   
   In truth, Ferguson has raved about her experience working with Streep, once telling Vanity Fair, “I have never met anyone so humble and kind,” so we can likely rule out Streep, and the world can breathe easy knowing that she, much like our other national treasure, Tom Hanks, is still a decent and near-perfect specimen of a human.

6. Hugh Grant

   Odds: 20:1

   While Meryl played the title character in Florence Foster Jenkins and was most certainly number one on the call sheet, #2 was Hugh Grant, and given his sometimes curmudgeonly behavior, he’d be a likely candidate for the role of on-set “idiot.” While Grant has admitted to throwing tantrums on the set, most recently while filming Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, he has always come off as more of a self-deprecating performer than a serious, capital-A Ac-tor. In one Vanity Fair interview, he admitted, “I sort of fear acting so much, or fear performing, I can always find reasons not to do something.” That hardly sounds like a person who would berate a fellow performer for not being true to the craft. And besides, we’re pretty sure no one would have the audacity to pull that kind of thing if Meryl was in earshot.