JUST KIDDING

Director Walks Back Outrageous Claim Jake Gyllenhaal ‘Ruined’ Movie

Thomas Bidegain said the movie fell apart because of “creative differences”––but he didn’t retract his wild claims about Gyllenhaal’s diva behavior.

Screenwriter and director Thomas Bidegain corrected claims that appeared in a French magazine last week in which he appeared to blame American actor Jake Gyllenhaal’s weird antics for tanking the original 2021 version of what became the French film Soudain seuls. The film, initially called Suddenly, was set to star Gyllenhaal and Vanessa Kirby before the actors apparently caused the whole project to collapse, according to Bidegain’s previous interviews. Bidegain told the French mag Technikart that Gyllenhaal’s diva demands included multiple script rewrites, an offensive Pepe-Le-Pew style accent, and a last-minute exit alongside Kirby that caused a pre-production loss of $26 million. Now, Bidegain has revised his dishy claims about Gyllenhaal, telling Variety that the actors split from the director over mere “creative differences,” a version of events that aligns with the statement released by the production studio, StudioCanal. Yet in his follow-up with Variety, Bidegain did not retract the frothy statements about Gyllenhaal that Technikart reported. So while Bidegain has mostly absolved the actor of ‘burying’ the director’s vision, the dramatic points of Gyllenhaal’s behavior remain unredacted.