Natasha Lyonne recently reminisced about working with actor James Woods—and the Poker Face star did not mince words while discussing his alleged creepy behavior.
During her appearance this week on Conan O’Brien’s podcast, Conan Needs a Friend, she said, “I fucking think James Woods is a great actor despite the fact that he’s a Republican psychopath who, I don’t know, was hitting on me as a teenager in full monster makeup.”
Lyonne and Woods shared a scene together in 2001’s Scary Movie 2, in which they parodied The Exorcist, with Lyonne playing the iconic Linda Blair character and Woods playing the aptly named priest Father McFeely.
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According to Lyonne, while they were filming the scene, “[Woods] was like, ‘I can tell even with the makeup, you’re a spinner, right?’” prompting shocked reactions from O’Brien and his co-hosts. (Lyonne was 22 years old when Scary Movie 2 premiered, though it is unclear how old she was when she filmed the movie.)
Lyonne’s account of Woods’ creepy on-set behavior is just the latest call-out against the Once Upon a Time in America actor. Back in 2017, actress Amber Tamblyn accused Woods of hitting on her when she was 16 years old.
“James Woods tried to pick me and my friend up at a restaurant once,” Tamblyn, who’s best known for her work in Joan of Arcadia and The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, tweeted at the time. “He wanted to take us to Vegas. ‘I’m 16,’ I said. ‘Even better,’ he said.” She later expanded on the experience in an open letter to Woods published by Teen Vogue. (Woods has denied Tamblyn’s allegations of predatory behavior.)
Woods was also named by actress Elizabeth Perkins during 2017’s #MeToo reckoning. In November of that year, the Weeds actress attended a #MeToo rally in Los Angeles where she held up a sign bearing Woods’ name. At the time, it was unclear if Perkins was accusing Woods of sexual misconduct, but she later commented on the sign in an interview with The Guardian in 2021. “I think it speaks for itself,” she said. “I speak out, like I said, for those who can’t speak for themselves, and for those people who feel they don’t have a voice.”
As for Lyonne’s comments on O’Brien’s podcast, Woods has yet to respond. The unsettling anecdote came after Lyonne told O’Brien about originally filming the same scene with Marlon Brando, who was later replaced by Woods. Though Brando was ultimately cut from the film, Lyonne was the last person to work with the legendary actor prior to his death in 2004.
“I’ll go ahead and say it—it was buck-wild,” Lyonne said of working with Brando. Lyonne claims to have been “felt up” by the Godfather star, as it was in the script for his character to have his hand on her chest. “I may be—and I don’t want to make it about me,” she joked. “I may be the last person that he felt up.”
