Megan Fox made quite a few controversial statements when she slammed filmmaker Michael Bay for allegedly exploiting her on the set of Transformers. She called him Hitler and as per rumours, her feud with the director was the reason why she couldn’t reprise her role in the franchise. But, Fox is not the only actress who has called him out for his allegedly s*xist behaviour. Kate Beckinsale, the actress who collaborated with Bay on Pearl Harbour, had a similar experience as well.
The actress candidly revealed how she felt the director was biased towards the actors in the film but treated her differently. Scroll on to learn more about it.
Kate Beckinsale once appeared on The Graham Norton Show and talked about Michael Bay. She shared that her experience of working with the director on Pearl Harbour was weird and said, “I think he was baffled by me because my b**bs weren’t bigger than my head, and I wasn’t blonde. I’d just had my daughter and had lost weight, but was told that if I got the part, I’d have to work out. And I just didn’t understand why a 1940s nurse would do that
Michael Bay had reacted to Kate Beckinsale’s statement and took to his website to say, “So I guess I was the ‘bad guy’ 16 years ago for suggesting a trainer because she just had her new beautiful baby girl—and she was about to enter into an intensive action movie. 95% of leads in movies have trainers and drink green juice!”
But wait, there’s more! Kate had further added on the show that Bay mocked her frequently while promoting the film. She said, “When we were promoting [Pearl Harbor], Michael was asked why he had chosen Ben [Affleck] and Josh [Hartnett], and he said, ‘I have worked with Ben before, and I love him, and Josh is so manly and a wonderful actor.’ Then, when he was asked about me, he’d say, ‘Kate wasn’t so attractive that she would alienate the female audience.’ He kept saying it everywhere we went, and we went to a lot of places.”
For the record, the Transformer director had explained why he chose Kate for Pearl Harbour to Movieline and said, “I didn’t want someone who was too beautiful. Women feel disturbed when they see someone’s too pretty. I’m not saying Kate’s not pretty. . .[she] is very funny, could hang with the guys. She’s not so neurotic about everything, like some actresses. When you look at Titanic, Kate Winslet is pretty but not overwhelmingly beautiful. That makes it work better for women.”