Anna Faris shares her own on-set harassment story

Actress Anna Faris revealed on her Unqualified podcast that like so many other women, she too has experienced sexual harassment while working. She was on a film set when the director behaved inappropriately.

“I had a director – I was doing a scene where I was on a ladder and I was supposed to be taking books off a shelf, and he slapped my ass in front of the crew so hard,” Faris said. “And all I could do was giggle.”

“I remember looking around and I remember seeing the crew members being like, ‘Wait, what are you going to do about that? That seemed weird,’" she added, noting that no one said anything to him in the moment or afterward. "And that’s how I dismissed it. I was like, ‘Well, this isn’t a thing. Like, it’s not that big of a deal. Buck up, Faris. Like, just giggle.’ But it made me feel small. He wouldn’t have done that to the lead male.”

On Faris's podcast, listeners call in and she and a celebrity guest offer them "unqualified" advice. It's usually funny – there's a lot of back-and-forth with the guest as they discuss often-romantic predicaments, but episode 95 began with a distressed call from the U.K.

The caller, Frances, described her discomfort with all the sexual harassment and assault stories coming to light in the media, and her confusion about using the hashtag #MeToo. Frances said she feels herself acting differently around male friends who could be dismissive of what she's been through and was unsure how to negotiate the conversation.

"There is that feeling of – we're supposed to think that this isn't a big deal," Faris said. "Like, somebody making us feel small because of our sexuality or...their predatory nature. And we've been so acclimatized to it that we have to dismiss it, or we shrug it off. But I think that anybody listening...can completely relate. I don't know that I've ever talked to a woman who couldn't possibly relate."

Faris and guest Arielle Kebbel discuss the problem further, along with executive producer Sim Sarna, who asked what men can do to help.

"The point of this entire conversation is that it's okay to talk about it," Kebbel told Frances. "And I think that's how we move forward is having the conversation and flipping the conversation – because the conversation is not about sex, it's about power. And when men and women together start to understand that men are manipulating for power...and the more men that start talking about that, the more free we are to not act like boys to be safe but to actually be the women that we are and be strong women that we are and add to the conversation that way instead of pretending to be boys to be safe."

H/t EW