A longtime Hollywood producer said that emerging superstar Sydney Sweeney is “not pretty” and “can’t act,” in a hot take quickly making the media rounds.
Carol Baum, an industry veteran whose credits include the films “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and “Father of the Bride,” issued her opinion last week after a screening of the 1988 movie “Dead Ringers,” the Daily Mail reported Tuesday.
A rep for Sweeney hit back hard Wednesday.
“How sad that a woman in the position to share her expertise and experience chooses instead to attack another woman,” the rep said in a statement to HuffPost. “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.”
Sweeney received Emmy nominations for “Euphoria” and “The White Lotus” and recently starred in the movies “Immaculate” and “Madame Web.” She also guest-hosted “Saturday Night Live” and starred in a Rolling Stones music video that highlighted her curvaceous figure.
Baum’s controversial assessment of the young actor was sparked by Sweeney’s appearance in the recent rom-com “Anyone but You.”
“There’s an actress who everybody loves now - Sydney Sweeney,” Baum reportedly said Thursday at the Jacob Burns Film Center in Pleasantville, New York. “I don’t get Sydney Sweeney.”
She told the audience and moderator Janet Maslin, a longtime New York Times critic, that the film was “unwatchable.” Baum explained that Sweeney’s name had come up in a course she teaches at the USC School of Cinematic Arts , based in Los Angeles.
“I said to my class, ‘Explain this girl to me. She’s not pretty, she can’t act. Why is she so hot?’” Baum recalled.
Carol Baum, left, reportedly criticized Sydney Sweeney during a recent film screening.
Maslin, the board director at the film center, appeared to confirm Baum’s takedown that included the producer’s blunt analysis of “Anyone but You.”
“It IS unwatchable,” Maslin wrote on X. “Carol Baum said this after we screened ‘Dead Ringers’ at the Jacob Burns Film Center and she mentioned having seen ‘Anyone But You’ on a plane.”
According to the Daily Mail, the producer also recalled that someone in her class had asked whether she’d put Sweeney in a movie if doing so would get it greenlighted.
“Who walks away from a green light?” Baum said she answered. “Nobody I know. Your job is to get the movie made.”
HuffPost did not immediately hear back from Baum in a request for comment.
This story has been updated with reaction from one of Sydney Sweeney’s representatives.
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