Ruth Wilson left The Affair over an alleged hostile work environment -- with help from Lena Dunham

The Hollywood Reporter

Wilson has said "there is a much bigger story" to her surprising exit last year before the Showtime drama's final season. The Hollywood Reporter has that story after conducting a number of interviews. "Many say Wilson, who is restrained by an NDA, had long wanted to leave the show because of ongoing frustrations with the nudity required of her, friction with (co-creator and showrunner Sarah) Treem over the direction of her character, and what she ultimately felt was a 'hostile work environment,' later the subject of a previously unreported 2017 investigation by Showtime parent company CBS," according to The Hollywood Reporter's Bryn Elise Sandberg and Kim Masters. "While Wilson was said to have understood that signing on to an adult drama at Showtime called The Affair would likely involve some disrobing, she ultimately took issue with the frequency and nature of certain nude scenes. Sources, many of whom declined to speak on the record, say Wilson was often asked to be unclothed in scenes where there seemed to be no clear creative rationale for the nudity other than for it to be 'titillating,' as one person involved with the production puts it. Another source overheard Wilson ask on set, referring to a male co-star, 'Why do you need to see me and not more of him?'" Wilson felt Treem pressured her to perform frequent nude scenes, according to The Hollywood Reporter, which notes that the show didn't hire an intimacy coordinator until the final season following Wilson's exit. Treem, however, denies she ever pressured performers. "I would never say those things to an actor. That's not who I am," she said. "I am not a manipulative person, and I've always been a feminist," says Treem, noting that she "did everything I could think of to make (Wilson) feel comfortable with these scenes." After years of frustration, Wilson was able to secure her exit from the Showtime series thanks to a September 2016 chance meeting between Jeffrey Reiner, an executive producer and frequent director on the The Affair, and Girls creator Lena Dunham and her colleague Jenni Konner at a restaurant in Montauk, New York. Reiner allegedly praised Dunham for her Girls nudity -- "You would show anything. Even your a**hole" -- and then allegedly asked Dunham if she would speak to Wilson to convince her to "show her t*ts, or at least some vag." Reiner then allegedly pulled out his phone showing a graphic photo of "a mutual friend with a c*ck next to her face." The Hollywood Reporter reports that the image was of Maura Tierney with a nude male body double. The alleged incident was written as a blind item in Dunham and Konner's Lenny Letter, which prompted CBS HR to talk to Reiner, though no action was taken. In February 2017, months before the #MeToo movement kicked off in October 2017, The Hollywood Reporter reports that Wilson raised a complaint with Showtime alleging a hostile work environment. Showtime parent CBS responded by opening an internal investigation. What ended up happening is that the incident between Reiner and Dunham gave Wilson the leverage to negotiate her exit with a substantial payment -- and apparently with some say over her character's fate.