Last night 'It Girl' Lena Dunham made a dramatic Tweet: "Sh%t got pretty real between Whit Stillman, Chris Eigeman & me @BAMcinematek tonight. Was left feeling WASPishly peeved/aroused." Dunham had hosted a screening of Stillman's The Last Days of Disco, which was followed with a Q&A between the aforementioned parties. According to cinephiles in the audience, the discussion was "feisty," and Dunham started off by saying the trio were in the middle of a "bloodbath argument." Sheesh, did someone use the wrong fork at dinner?
We spoke with Eigeman today, and he tells us he was very surprised to see Stillman (with whom he's worked in three classic films) refer to him and Dunham as "ingrates and traitors" in a Gothamist interview published yesterday, before the screening. He says that along with Dunham, he confronted Stillman about it in a bar before the event, and that things got "pretty raucous." In Stillman's world, we're guessing this means some eyebrows were very sharply raised.
"I’m not a big fan of having my loyalty called into question," Eigeman says, "Particularly by Whit Stillman, whom clearly I have been deeply loyal to." According to Eigeman, both he and Dunham confronted Stillman and asked if he was joking when he called them ingrates and traitors, and Stillman said "I'm not joking." The filmmaker had made the remark in response to a question about why Eigeman wasn't in his new film, Damsels in Distress, telling us:
Yeah, I'm still pissed off at the guy. I wanted him to play Professor Ryan. I would have made it a bigger deal. He would have been great in that.
What happened? He wouldn't do it.
Why not? You've gotta ask him.
Maybe I haven't been paying close enough attention but I don't remember seeing him in anything recently. Well that's one of the things he told me, that he was feeling really bad about acting, he was really down on acting. He's been trying to get a film off the ground. But then I see that the other person who no-showed on my production was that Lena Dunham girl. She then cast him in her TV show so the two people who no-showed to our film are collaborating together, acting. What ingrates and traitors.
At that point, Eigeman says his attitude was, "Let’s figure this out right now, because if this goes on unchecked it will not end well... The one thing I didn’t want was this notion that I would not want to do a small part. The best evidence against that is Lena’s show which I’m in the trailer of and that’s basically my entire part, in fact. I think Whit understood that. I think it’s a very easy thing to say 'you didn’t do it because the part was small' but that is a wildly inaccurate way of describing it."
Whit Stillman on the set of Damsels in Distress
According to Eigeman, the three had a long argument about it before the screening, during the Q&A, and even afterwards, but by the end "all feelings were mended." Dunham did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but Stillman tells us Eigeman's version of the evening "sounds good." He adds, "I shouldn't have said ingrate anyway (if I did) since Lena of course owes me nothing, I'm in her debt for the introduction to her collaborators." [Editor's note: We just triple-checked the audio recording of our Stillman interview, and that "ingrates and traitors" quote is 100% accurate.]
Eigeman says that by the end, he was able to convince Stillman that his decision to turn down the role "had nothing to do with loyalty, and I think he also understood my position, which was since I couldn’t find a distinctive way through [the role]. It would be really counter-productive to have me just standing there. I sort of felt like—and I admit this is probably more decision than mine—but I thought it would kind of just take you out of the movie a little bit."
Nevertheless, our only real gripe with Damsels in Distress—it opens tonight, go see it, it's very funny and weird!—was the glaring absence of Chris Eigeman, and we'd hate to see this little public drama get in the way of them working together again. But as it happens, Eigeman says, "Whit and I had been trying for years to find a film to NOT do together, and I wasn't supposed to be in 'Disco' originally. Whit and I agreed 'let’s not do this one together.' And then I think five or six days before filming, I came on."
And finally, about Stillman's comment that Eigeman was "feeling bad about acting," he tells us, "That's not really the case. I am spending more time writing and I am spending time getting another film that we hope to do in September. So writing and directing is what I’ve been spending more time doing."
The Playlist was at last night's Q&A, and reports that Stillman claimed the actors turned down the roles because it "wasn’t enough screentime and importance for them." At that point, "Dunham responded by reciting from memory a bruised letter she’d received from Stillman at the time and had since framed.'“How could you decline to be in my film which will be seen worldwide for decades to come in exchange for the utter ephemera of a TV pilot.' "
Anyway, were YOU at the bloodbath? Did anyone on stage clap sarcastically at anyone else? Did you write a thank-you note on embossed stationary yet? Let us know!
