Benny Safdie, one half of the award-winning directing duo The Safdie Brothers, is speaking out about the sexual misconduct allegations against his former collaborator Sebastian Bear-McClard, who has since exited the Safdies’ production company.
“It’s disgusting, and when you find out something about somebody that you didn’t realize, you just have to be much more careful,” Safdie told GQ in a new profile. “It’s a lot, and it’s not something that you want to have happen to anybody. And when you find it out, the one thing that you can do is really just take control.”
In a Variety story published in March, multiple women accused Bear-McClard—who co-produced Benny and Josh Safdies’ critically acclaimed films Good Time and Uncut Gems—of engaging in troubling and predatory behavior, including grooming, sexual assault, and, in one alleged victim’s case, calling them numerous slurs. In the article, a spokesperson for the Safdies said that the brothers became “aware of Sebastian McClard’s behavior in July 2022” and “took immediate action and terminated him” from their company Elara Pictures.
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The exposé also alluded to some questionable behavior on the Safdies’ part, which goes unmentioned in the GQ profile. The Variety story opens with one accuser’s traumatizing experience filming a scene for their 2017 caper Good Time, which doesn’t appear in the final cut. After being approached by Bear-McClard on Instagram, the then-17-year-old girl was allegedly coaxed into performing a completely nude sex scene with an unknown male actor, who asked if he could penetrate her. The brothers were reportedly present when the scene was shot.
In the GQ interview, Benny also commented on his departure from the Safdies’ highly anticipated reunion with Uncut Gems star Adam Sandler: a Netflix movie about sports memorabilia collectors that also stars Megan Thee Stallion. In May, Above The Line reported that Josh would be directing the film solo.
Given Benny’s busy acting career—including a role in this week’s Christopher Nolan blockbuster Oppenheimer—and the recent PR disaster surrounding their production company, fans on social media have speculated about the future of the directing duo. According to Benny, their temporary split makes sense for both of them.
“Elara is still there,” he said. “We work on a lot of documentaries, and there’s just a constant flow of ideas. It just felt like, OK, there’s things that I want to explore that don’t necessarily align right now with Josh. So it’s a divide and conquer mentality. He wants to tell this story. He can go and do that. I’m going to go and do a couple of other things. It seems like a natural progression for how things have happened.”
