James Franco and two of his associates are facing a class-action lawsuit alleging that the actor’s Studio 4 acting and filmmaking school was actually a setup to provide them with a stream of young, impressionable women for sexual and financial exploitation.
The suit, filed Thursday in Los Angeles Superior Court and reviewed by The Times, was brought by former students Sarah Tither-Kaplan and Toni Gaal. It accuses the Oscar-nominated actor — along with business partner Vince Jolivette, Rabbit Bandini Productions and the production company’s general manager, Jay Davis — of sex discrimination, sexual harassment, fraudulent business practices and intimidation, among other things.
“Studio 4 allowed Franco and his entourage to collect tuition for their own personal gain, and stockpile explicit footage of women,” the law firm Valli Kane & Vagnini, which is representing the plaintiffs, said in a statement Thursday. “The school diminished a woman’s role on set to that of a sexual object who could only obtain professional opportunities through gratuitous nudity, explicit sex scenes and succumbing to sexual advances by the men in charge.”
Attempts to reach publicists and attorneys for the “127 Hours” actor and Jolivette were not immediately successful Thursday.
Franco and Jolivette opened Studio 4 in 2014 in Los Angeles and New York. Both locations have since been shuttered. Plaintiff Tither-Kaplan was one of five women who accused Franco of sexually inappropriate behavior in a 2018 Times story.
Franco’s attorney at the time, Michael Plonsker, disputed all of the women’s allegations in that story and directed The Times to comments the actor made on “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert.”
“Look, in my life I pride myself on taking responsibility for things that I have done,” he told Colbert. “I have to do that to maintain my well being. The things that I heard that were on Twitter [allegations posted after he wore a Time’s Up pin to the Golden Globes] are not accurate. But I completely support people coming out and being able to have a voice because they didn’t have a voice for so long. So I don’t want to shut them down in any way.
“If I have done something wrong,” he added, “I will fix it — I have to.”
According to the lawsuit, students who paid around $300 monthly to attend Stage 4 or participated in one of its $2,000 “Master Classes” were led to believe that they would receive audition opportunities not available to nonstudents. However, the suit claims, those opportunities were not exclusive.
Among the master classes was one called “Sex Scenes,” taught by Franco. Students had to audition for master classes and sign away all rights to audition tapes. They were “encouraged to audition nude or partially nude if a scene called for nudity,” according to the lawsuit, and were “routinely pressured to engage in simulated sexual acts that went far beyond the standards in the industry.”
(Excerpt) Read more in: Los Angeles Times
