What happened to women supporting women? Earlier this week Hollywood producer Carol Baum disparaged Sydney Sweeney‘s acting ability and appearance, prompting the actress and fellow producer to respond.
“How sad that a woman in the position to share her expertise and experience chooses instead to attack another woman,” a representative for Sweeney said in a statement to press. “If that’s what she’s learned in her decades in the industry and feels is appropriate to teach to her students, that’s shameful. To unjustly disparage a fellow female producer speaks volumes about Ms. Baum’s character.”
Baum, known as the producer of Father of the Bride and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, discussed Sweeney during a recent appearance opposite The New York Times film critic Janet Maslin in New York. During the onstage conversation, Baum criticized Sweeney’s film Anyone But You, which Sweeney produced and starred in.
“There’s an actress who everybody loves now: Sydney Sweeney,” Baum said. “I don’t get Sydney Sweeney. I was watching on the plane Sydney Sweeney’s movie because I wanted to watch it. I wanted to know who she is and why everybody’s talking about her. I watched this unwatchable movie — sorry to people who love this… romantic comedy where they hate each other.”
She continued that she spoke about the actress with her class at the University of Southern California, where Baum is an adjunct professor. “I said to my class, ‘Explain this girl to me. She’s not pretty, she can’t act. Why is she so hot?’” Baum said. “Nobody had an answer. But then the question was asked, ‘Well, if you could get your movie made because she was in it, would you do it?’… That’s a very hard question to answer because we all want to get the movie made and who walks away from a green light? Nobody I know. Your job is to get the movie made.”
Several people came to Sweeney’s immediate defense, including producer Teddy Schwarzman, who worked with the actress on her recent movie Immaculate.
“As a producer of Immaculate, I’ll enlighten Ms. Baum that two-time Emmy nominee Sydney Sweeney is not only one of the most talented actresses I’ve worked with, but also incredibly smart, kind and humble,” he wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “I’m not sure why someone who claims to still be a producer would make such terribly ugly comments, but I can assure everyone that Sydney is at least beautiful on the inside. And, of course, a badass Scream Queen.”
Maslin tried to clarify the discussion, writing on X that Anyone But You “is unwatchable.” She added, “We brought up Anyone But You because it’s been the rare smash hit rom-com at a time when they aren’t working. Not because we wanted to take cheap shots at anyone.”
Anyone But You was a huge success at the box and a hit with viewers. In the film, Glen Powell and Sweeney star as two twenty-somethings who are at odds after their first (and only) date goes south. When they later find themselves attending the same destination wedding in Australia, they decide to fake a relationship with one another in order to get their well-intentioned loved ones off their backs.
