Actresses Selma Blair and Rachel McAdams have added their names to the growing list of women who have come forward to allege that writer and director James Toback sexually harassed or assaulted them following a report Sunday in The Los Angeles Times detailing the accounts of 38 accusers.
Since Sunday, the number of accusers has ballooned to over 200 alleging inappropriate encounters with Toback, an Oscar-nominee for his Bugsy screenplay.
Speaking to Vanity Fair, Blair and McAdams describe encounters similar to those detailed in the news report — many of which assert that Toback, now 72, would talk up his accomplishments and promise stardom, often referencing his friendship with Robert Downey Jr., before performing sex acts on the women.
Blair had already filmed Cruel Intentions when her representative arranged for her to meet Toback for a possible role in his film Harvard Man. The meeting was set at a hotel restaurant, but Blair said when she arrived the hostess said that Toback wanted her to meet him in his room.
There, she described a long meeting in which Toback asked her to perform a monologue naked, propositioned her for sex. Blair said he then simulated a sex act on her leg.
“I felt disgust and shame, and like nobody would ever think of me as being clean again after being this close to the devil,” Blair said. “His energy was so sinister.”
Afterward, Toback implied that if she told anyone, he could have her killed.
“I didn’t want to speak up because, it sounds crazy but, even until now, I have been scared for my life,” Blair said.
McAdams, an Oscar nominee for her supporting role in Spotlight, also met Toback to audition for Harvard Man. She was 21 and just starting out in the business. After her audition he told her he wanted to conduct a workshop with her. They met that night in his hotel room where, she said, the conversation quickly turned sexual.
He later asked if she would show him her private parts. McAdams said she eventually excused herself and left.
“I was very lucky that I left and he didn’t actually physically assault me in any way,” she said.
The accounts come as sexual harassment in the workplace, and, specifically Hollywood, has been under increased scrutiny after dozens of women accused movie mogul Harvey Weinstein of sexual harassment and assault going back decades.
Toback has denied the allegations to the paper, and declined to comment on the new ones.
Weinstein accusers, who now total over 50, have ranged from assistants to aspiring actresses to some of the industry’s most famous, including Gwyneth Paltrow and Angelina Jolie. Filmmaker Ava DuVernay tweeted that Blair and the others are “big enough.”
“You’ve helped someone out there. You have,” DuVernay wrote to Blair.
Julianne Moore said on Twitter Tuesday that Toback approached her on the street in New York in the 80s, asking her to come to his apartment to audition.
