The showrunner of the steamy Showtime drama The Affair defended herself on Friday against accusations that she created a hostile work environment which led to star Ruth Wilson’s departure.
Sarah Treem, the co-creator of the award-winning series, acknowledged that she had disagreements with the 37-year-old English actress, who shocked the entertainment world when she announced her abrupt departure from the show in the summer of 2018.
While Wilson is prevented from commenting on the circumstances of her exit due to a nondisclosure agreement, numerous individuals familiar with the details say she was unhappy over the frequent nude scenes she was required to film.
The Golden Globe-winning actress refused to perform one shocking aggressive sex scene where her character was forced up against a tree at a yoga retreat after saying it was ‘rapey’, meaning a body-double had to be called in, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
On set she also allegedly complained about the disparity between how often male and female characters were expected to be naked, saying ‘why do you need to see me and not more of him?’
Sarah Treem, 39, is refuting claims that she created a hostile work environment on the set of the hit Showtime series The Affair
While performing sex scenes, insiders have also alleged there were ‘people there who didn’t need to be’ and that monitors were ‘in plain view’ during the performance.
According to THR, Treem was said to have told Wilson ‘everyone is waiting for you’ and ‘you look beautiful’ in an attempt to get them on set while naked for the scenes.
Treem denied that she used manipulative means to get the actors to do more nude scenes than were necessary.
She told THR: ‘I would never say those things to an actor. That’s not who I am.
‘I am not a manipulative person, and I’ve always been a feminist.’
Treem told THR: ‘I have devoted my entire professional life to writing about and speaking to women’s issues, women’s causes, women’s empowerment and creating strong, complex roles for women in theatre and in Hollywood, on- and offscreen.
‘The idea that I would ever cultivate an unsafe environment or harass a woman on one of my shows is utterly ridiculous and lacks a grounding in reality.’
Treem felt that THR did not include key parts of her perspective.
In a lengthy rebuttal she posted on Deadline, she writes that the frequency of the nude scenes was required due to the ‘Rashomon-style’ narrative device that told the same story twice though each time from the differing perspectives of the show’s characters.
Treem acknowledges that she had numerous disagreements with Wilson over several nude scenes, including the one in which she and her character’s married lover, Noah, who was played by Dominic West, have ‘aggressive’ sex against a tree.
Noah is married to Hellen, played in the series by Maura Tierney. He has an affair with Wilson’s character, Alison, and ends up ruining his marriage.
‘The scene was written from Noah’s perspective,’ Treem writes.
Treem is reportedly the reason that one of the show’s stars, Ruth Wilson, abruptly quit in the summer of 2018
‘From Noah’s perspective, Alison is angry at him, but the force of her attraction to him overwhelms her and they have aggressive, but consensual, sex against a tree.
‘Did I know that scene reads as a male fantasy? Of course. That was the whole point.
‘The Affair was about perspective. And specifically, about subverting the male narrative.
‘By the middle of the second season, I had faith that our audience understood the rules of the show and they knew that Noah was an unreliable narrator.
‘But Ruth Wilson, who was playing Alison, didn’t approve of the scene and didn’t want to play it as written.
‘By this point, it wasn’t a surprise as we had been disagreeing on the character’s choices since the second episode.
Wilson was reportedly unhappy over the frequent nude sex scenes she was required to do as part of the script. She is seen right alongside co-star Dominic West, who plays her married lover
‘By now we were at this complicated impasse where I didn’t know how to write the character any differently and she didn’t feel she could play what I was writing.’
Treem writes that she agreed to changes proposed by Wilson that ‘alter[ed] the intent of the scene to something that seemed non-consensual.’
She also writes that the producers brought in a body-double to do nudity.
Treem says that Wilson also objected to a sex scene in the pilot episode in which she and her lover are on the hood of a car.
The script called for Wilson’s character to appear in five separate sex scenes – three of which took place on the hood of the car, according to Treem.
She writes: ‘If you’ve seen the show, you know that scenes are often told twice, from two different perspectives.
‘The first time we see the scene on the hood of the car, from the perspective of the character of Noah, it looks like Alison is being raped by a man.
‘The second time we see the scene, from Alison’s perspective, the audience realizes the man is her husband, they’ve both lost a child, and this aggressive sex has become part of their dynamic in their grief.
‘It’s not something they’re talking about, but they are clearly communicating and what happens against the hood of the car is consensual.’
Treem writes that Wilson objected to doing the scene.
‘On a continuous basis throughout Ruth’s time on the show, I tried to protect her and shoot sex scenes safely and respectfully,’ she writes.
The Hollywood Reporter claimed there was further upset on set due to the alleged conduct of The Affair’s executive producer and director Jeffrey Reiner (pictured far right with L-R cast member Joshua Jackson, Treem, Wilson, cast members Maura Tierney and Julia Goldani Telles)
‘In the pilot episode referenced above, she came to me and didn’t like the director’s suggestion that she do the scene nude against the hood of the car.
‘I agreed and talked to the director and we changed the scene.’
Treem writes that she also took out a sex scene from the third episode which Wilson objected to.
In other instances, according to Treem, the producers and directors showed Wilson and other actors the sex scenes – some of them rehearsed with body doubles – to get their approval before it was included in the episode’s final cut.
In the ninth episode of the first season, Wilson objected to a sex scene, but Treem writes that the scene was necessary to tell the story, so it was filmed with body doubles.
Treem refutes the idea that artistic disagreements with Wilson over nude scenes and other aspects of her character did not mean that there was a hostile work environment on the set.
‘We didn’t agree on the choices of the character or whether or not a sex scene was necessary to advance the plot, but that is not the same thing as not respecting or supporting an actress’s need to feel safe in her work environment, which is something I always take incredibly seriously,’ Treem writes.
She claims that she made artistic compromises with Wilson so that her character is closer to the actress’ vision of what she should be in the story.
‘By the time we got to the third season, I had abandoned my original plan for the character and was actively trying to write Alison closer to Ruth’s vision,’ according to Treem.
‘Alison becomes a social worker. She breaks up with Noah for good. She’s strong, independent and alone.’
But Wilson then asked to leave the show early that season so she could perform the play Hedda Gabler on stage.
Treem writes that this was ‘creatively problematic for the show’ but she obliged anyway and accommodated Wilson, writing the character out of the season prematurely.
‘I was working incredibly hard to locate some sort of happy medium for us, where she would feel good about doing the show and we could continue to move the story forward,’ according to Treem.
But then a new crisis erupted. In September 2016, a blog post on Girls creator Lena Dunham’s website ‘Lenny Letter’ recalled a conversation between Girls producer Jenni Konner and Jeffrey Reiner, an executive producer and frequent director for The Affair.
At the time, both shows were filming in Montauk on the eastern tip of Long Island.
During a chance encounter at a restaurant, Konner claims that ‘a producer/director’ on ‘another TV show that shoots nearby’ struck up a conversation with Dunham and praised her for the graphic nudity seen on Girls.
‘You would show anything. Even your a****e,’ Konner quoted the producer/director, understood to be Reiner, as saying.
Konner wrote that Reiner ‘seemed very drunk’.
She then writes that Reiner asked Dunham to meet Wilson and convince her to do more nude scenes in which she would ‘show her t***, or at least some vag.’
While Reiner declined to comment on the matter, Cleta Ellington, an assistant director on The Affair, disputed Konner’s account. She said she participated in the conversation.
‘The 2016 Montauk conversation described in Jenni Konner’s September 2016 Lenny Letter did not happen as portrayed by Konner,’ Ellington told THR.
‘While this quick, funny conversation took a few explicit twists and turns, Lena was the provocateur in the conversation.
‘Yes, we did discuss nudity, body doubles, the ins and outs of filming sex scenes, what the various networks expected, and even shared a nude picture of male genitalia after Lena accused The Affair of not showing equal male nudity.
‘But our candid conversation did not once ever pause in discomfort.
‘I feel the Lenny Letter, which inexplicably erased me from the conversation, was a clickbait smear against a trusted colleague.’
Dispute: Girls co-show runner Jenni Konner wrote about a night out with Reiner in a blind item for her and Lena Dunham’s Lenny Letter, alleging that Reiner praised Lena’s comfort with nudity and asked her to persuade Ruth to ‘show her t*ts’ (Konner and Dunham pictured in 2017)
Dunham and Konner declined to comment.
Treem writes that she learned of the incident from California, where she was taking care of her newborn baby while doing edits for the show.
‘When I heard about the incident, I came back to New York and tried to figure out what actually happened,’ she writes.
‘When the Lenny Letter came out, I repeatedly urged Showtime to do something.
‘I wanted to shut down production, do sensitivity training, address the cast and crew and apologize for what had occurred.
‘But instead, I was told to stick to certain talking points and let the network handle the response.
‘By the time the third season was over, Showtime executives told me to write Ruth out of the show.’
Treem also addresses reports that Wilson did not approve of the way in which her character was killed off.
She writes that network executives initially approved of the final scene in which Alison is killed by her married boyfriend who tries to rape her.
But when Wilson objected, Showtime executives told Treem to change the scene.
The boyfriend, a veteran suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, ends up killing Alison, but there was no sexual assault.
Treem writes that her disagreements with Wilson over the frequent nude scenes were artistic and creative.
‘I have given my entire professional life to confronting the patriarchy and celebrating women’s narratives through my writing,’ she writes.
‘Yes, I know women can be chauvinists and there is misogyny among women, but that is simply not what happened here.’