Update (November 21): Oliver Stone has made an official statement to Deadline regarding Gilbert’s harassment accusation: “We auditioned dozens of actors for roles in ‘The Doors’ and it was made clear from the outset that our film was going to be a raunchy, no-holds-barred rock ‘n’ roll movie. Anyone auditioning was told the scenes would be rehearsed and performed from a script, with my casting director, Risa Bramon Garcia, present throughout the process to ensure a safe environment for all actors who auditioned.”
Earlier: Melissa Gilbert, the actress best known for starring in the television series “Little House on the Prairie,” recently appeared on Andy Cohen’s radio show “Radio Andy” and shared an Oliver Stone audition story she calls “humiliating and horrid.” The audition was to play Jim Morrison’s girlfriend Pamela Courson in “The Doors.” According to Gilbert, Stone made her audition a “special scene” that was a “really dirty, horrible” sex scene.
Gilbert told Cohen the scene required her to get down on her hands and knees and that Stone informed her she would actually have to stage the scene if she wanted to audition. Gilbert left the audition in tears and felt humiliated.
“He wrote this special scene that he wanted me to do for him physically in the casting room, and it was humiliating and horrid,” Gilbert said. The actress says Stone wrote the audition scene for her in order to get revenge after she had embarrassed him at a nightclub. She said, “He got me back and it hurt.” Meg Ryan eventually landed the role.
Gilbert’s story is the second harassment allegation to come out of the audition process for “The Doors.” Former actress Caitlin O’Heaney broke an NDA she signed to tell BuzzFeed of an alleged assault at the hands of Val Kilmer during her audition for “The Doors.” O’Heaney was also auditioning for the role of Pamela Courson. Her audition scene was an argument with Kilmer and ended with the actor slapping her and knocking her to the ground.
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