Joss Whedon’s Apology Tour Goes Quickly Off The Rails After Questioning Gal Gadot’s English-Language Fluency

In a lengthy new interview with New York magazine, Joss Whedon finally addressed on-set misconduct allegations from Justice League stars Gal Gadot and Ray Fisher, as well as Buffy the Vampire Slayer star Charisma Carpenter.

Last April, Wonder Woman star Gadot confirmed anonymous reports stating that when she objected to how her character was rewritten for Justice League reshoots, Whedon threatened her career.

In the New York piece, Whedon maintained that there must have been a language-related communication issue. “English is not her first language, and I tend to be annoyingly flowery in my speech,” he said of Gadot’s accusations, pointing to an instance in which he joked that the actress would have to tie his body to a train track to get him to delete a scene with which she took issue. “Then I was told that I had something about her dead body and tying her to the railroad track,” Whedon added.

“I understood perfectly,” Gadot tersely told the outlet in response.

For his part, actor Ray Fisher (who played Cyborg in Justice League) previously took to Twitter in July 2020 to accuse the director of “gross, abusive, unprofessional, and completely unacceptable” behavior on the Justice League set.

Whedon argued that Cyborg’s original story within the film, which he reduced considerably, “logistically made no sense.” The director went on to criticize Fisher’s performance in general. “We’re talking about a bad force,” Whedon said. “We’re talking about a bad actor in both senses.”

Fisher responded to Whedon’s comments in a tweet on Monday (which marked Martin Luther King Jr. Day), writing, “Rather than address all the lies and buffoonery today — I will be celebrating the legacy of Reverend Sr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Charisma Carpenter, who played Cordelia Chase on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the spinoff series Angel, shared a social media statement last February alleging that Whedon “has a history” of creating “hostile and toxic work environments.”

She wrote that Whedon called her fat when she was four months pregnant, accusing her of sabotaging the show and ultimately firing her after she gave birth.

“I was young,” Whedon said of Carpenter’s allegations. “I yelled, and sometimes you had to yell.”

While he denied calling the actress fat, he did provide this completely passive-aggressive statement to New York: “Most of my experiences with Charisma were delightful and charming. She struggled sometimes with her lines, but nobody could hit a punch line harder.”