Scott Rudin is making a comeback, baby!

(cont.) The Broadway League, the trade association of producers and theater owners, declined to comment on his planned return, as did several people who reported having bad experiences with Rudin. Al Vincent Jr., the executive director of Actors’ Equity Association, the union representing actors and stage managers, noted that union contracts “hold employers responsible for ensuring a workplace free of bullying, discrimination and harassment.”

“Since Scott Rudin last worked with Equity members, in reaction to his previous behaviors, Equity has taken steps to strengthen those contractual protections,” Vincent said. He added that the union had also taken steps to limit the use of nondisclosure agreements “so they can’t shield abusive employers.”

Rudin had been a prolific producer of artistically ambitious, and often successful, work, but was dogged for decades by complaints about yelling at, firing and occasionally hurling things at subordinates.

Then, in 2021, The Hollywood Reporter ran an exposé about his abusive behavior toward assistants, which prompted widespread outrage and led him to step back from producing. Protesters marched on Broadway, chanting “Scott Rudin has got to go.” The New York Times then revealed new details about how he wielded power with actors, playwrights, agents and business associates: In addition to excoriating staffers he also deployed anger, threats and occasional lawsuits against perceived foes. Rudin announced that he was resigning from the Broadway League.

Rudin — an EGOT who has won an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and 18 Tony Awards — became a pariah.

“What happened in ’21 was in some basic way inevitable,” he said. “Very little was said that hadn’t been said many times. So I always, frankly, felt that once the culture started to change, one day it was going to change for me.”

He declined to enumerate his misdeeds, saying, “I’m not attempting to create a menu of miscreant behavior.” He added: “A lot of what was said was true. Some of what was said wasn’t true. But I didn’t feel there was any point in responding to all of it because what’s the point of parsing bad behavior? It was bad behavior. I own it.”

And why did he behave poorly toward others?

“I don’t think I was ever really in the dark about why I was rough on people,” he said. “I knew why I was rough on people. For a long time, it seemed like a price I could live with. I wasn’t really thinking about what price other people could live with, because producing at the level of volume that I was requires a level of narcissism. If you don’t inherently believe you’re doing better than other people, why are you doing it? There are better ways to make a living.”

He said that he had made the “profound mistake” of believing that “anything and anybody who got in the way of what I was trying to do could cause it to fail.”

“But it isn’t true,” he said. “And being away from it for a while made me feel differently about it.”

Rudin’s attempted comeback arrives at a time when the nation appears much less unforgiving of men accused of bad behavior or misconduct than it did just a few years ago. President Trump was elected to a second term after being convicted of falsifying business records; Andrew M. Cuomo is a front-runner in the New York mayor’s race three years after he resigned as governor; and the comedian Louis C.K. is selling out arenas after acknowledging sexual misconduct.

“I’m going to try to come back and make some more good work, and people will feel how they feel,” Rudin said. “And if some people are really angry about it, they’ll have the right to be angry about it.” (cont.)

(cont.) He has not been entirely off the grid since his career imploded. He said he had continued to see shows and offer advice to people in the industry who sought his help. And he was particularly involved in helping Barry Diller, a longtime friend, plan the ambitious artistic programming at Little Island, the small park Diller built in the Hudson River. Rudin found working on something where he was not in charge liberating.

He also spent time reshuffling his life. He sold his Upper West Side co-op, and then sold the place he had intended to next occupy, a West Village townhouse he had purchased from Graydon Carter, the editor. He moved to his weekend home in East Hampton, started building a house in Connecticut and then decided that project was not how he wanted to spend his energy. Now he has sold the East Hampton house and is preparing to move to the North Fork of Long Island. He also sold a lot of art, deciding there was no point just keeping it in storage.

Working on Little Island rekindled his interest in producing. “A lot of producing is thinking ‘What if?’” he said. “And I hadn’t thought ‘What if?’ in a really long time.”

He decided to see if he could fill a void in New York’s postpandemic theater scene, which has seen some splashy musicals and some star-powered plays but, from Rudin’s point of view, less adventurous programing than it should have.

“I think the economics of Broadway have gotten tougher and tougher, and that some producers are throwing movie stars at that model as a way of cauterizing the bleeding,” he said. “But I don’t believe it’s a sustainable model because overall, what has historically worked has been really good shows with really great people in them, whether they were movie stars or not. And I think using stars as a replacement for quality has a sell-by date printed all over it.”

He said he worried that there was “a paucity of work that’s truly, truly achieved” and too much work that feels “first drafty.”

Rudin said he had agreed to talk for this article because he felt it was a necessary step if he was ever to move forward.

“I felt that I owed it to people to talk about coming back if I was going to,” he said.

“I own what I did,” he added. “I feel proud of the work overall, and badly about the cost of it to some people who worked on it.”

Asked about apologies, Rudin said: “I apologized to the people I felt I needed to apologize to. In many cases they were people I had apologized to previously, some of them numerous times. Not everybody was receptive to it.”

He said he had more than a dozen shows in various stages of development, including some well-known musicals, but he is starting with plays and several of the forthcoming productions will star Laurie Metcalf and be directed by Joe Mantello. (Neither of them responded to requests for comment through a representative.)

This fall he plans the first Broadway production of “Little Bear Ridge Road,” a play by Samuel D. Hunter that was staged last year in Chicago by Steppenwolf Theater Company. The New York production, like the one in Chicago, will star Metcalf and will be directed by Mantello. Next spring Rudin plans to stage “Montauk,” a new play by David Hare, also starring Metcalf and directed by Mantello. The following season he says he hopes to revive “Death of a Salesman” in a production with Metcalf and Nathan Lane, again directed by Mantello.

“I think Laurie is the greatest actress in America,” Rudin said. “I do. I also believe in Laurie as a partner. Laurie is an amazing person to be in a room with, because the way she takes ownership of a text is remarkable to see, but it ignites a quality of work around her.”

He has other plans, too. This fall he plans to stage a Broadway production of “Cottonfield,” a new play by Bruce Norris, which Rudin said would be directed by Robert O’Hara. The collaboration is noteworthy because Rudin and Norris had a publicized falling-out in 2012; Rudin has been known to torpedo and then rebuild relationships over the course of his stormy career. (cont.)

This is a happy day for Laurie Metcalf. I want her back on Broadway (and not in flops like Grey House).

(cont.) He allowed that “hotheaded people, in which I would number myself, have a tendency, especially when confronted with other hotheaded people, to blow something up beyond what it’s worth.”

And next winter, Rudin plans to stage an Off Broadway production of a new play by Wallace Shawn called “What We Did Before Our Moth Days,” which will be directed by André Gregory, who was Shawn’s co-star in “My Dinner With André.”

The plays Rudin plans to produce, at least initially, are challenging and ambitious, and it is not clear that others were ready to stage them. “When I think about the work that I did that was good, it was almost always work that nobody else wanted to do,” Rudin said. “In almost every movie that I did that worked, I was always the only person who wanted to do it. So I kind of feel like in this round of making work, if somebody else wants to do something, they should. If I’m the only person who wants to do it, and I feel strongly about it, it should be me.”

And will he return to movies too? “I want to do this first,” he said. “I want to see what it feels like. I want, frankly, to make sure I’m still good at it, and I want to make sure that I’m not going to be killed by a sniper’s bullet on 45th Street.”

“I made 130 movies and probably nearly a hundred shows, so it’s not like I didn’t get a shot to do what I wanted to do — I had more shots than anybody,” he added. “In a way, I think one of the good things that happened with me being out for a few years is that it created room for other people, which I think is a great thing and a really healthy thing. But at the same time there’s a corner of it that I enjoyed occupying, which is making good work with good friends and people that I trusted and wanted to be in a room with. So I’m going to do that.”

Bo-ring. I prefer spicy Scott calling out 'minimally talented spoiled brat' Angelina Jolie

This guy should be in prison. He physically assaulted his staff repeatedly. Fuck him!

Hollywood simply cannot read the room.

I love that protest sign - You Put the Rude in Rudin.

There's just no excuse for someone who throws things. People who are willing to work with him now all this is out in the open are pretty shitty.

FUCK YOU, R9!!!

He was indescribably horrible - almost everyone who has worked for him has been fired multiple times. He treated people like SHIT for decades.

You can't change at that age. He'll sublimate it and let it out in other ways. But, because he can make $$$, he will be taken back in.

I can't believe he has a husband - imagine the abuse he has taken over the years.

Ugly on the outside and even uglier on the inside. I really don't think you guys know HOW AWFUL he was. Take the worst boss you've ever had - multiple by 100.

I like Nathan Lane but I can't imagine him in death Of a salesman.

Woke Hollywood is over!

Fuck this POS. Bullies never stop being bullies. It's in their wiring til the day they die.

Just for some background - here's a little selection of his documented behaviors

So it says he went through over 119 assistants in 5 years (others say more like 240). How the hell do you expect ANY assistant to anticipate your needs when they're not around for more than a few weeks?

And all of his physical assault incidents - he really SHOULD be in jail or sued, but all the assistants were scared as fuck of him and his power.

He’s back! Like herpes.

Paywalled, r15.

R18 - sorry, worked for me - but I think Vulture allows just 1 article to be viewed for free per month. Google some of the stories, it's hair-raising.

Threw things at people - landing them in a hospital - threw an assistant out of the car on the tri-borough expressway. Abuse in every possible way. Breaking an iPad over an assistant's hand. Firing a blind person and a person who had type 1 diabetes and needed 30 minutes a day to take care of it.

On and on and on and on

True story: A choreographer did the dances for one of his shows. His weekly royalty checks were a fraction of what they were supposed to be, and on each check Scott would write, "this is what your choreography is worth to me."

Can't wait for that "Gary" sequel.

I don't believe this 66 year old has changed or is remotely sorry.

What is the deal with someone like Laurie Metcalf agreeing to work with him again, knowing what we all know? Are her millions from "Roseanne" and 'The conners" not enough for her?

That production of the Samuel Hunter play Little Bear Ridge Road with Laurie Metcalf got awful reviews when it premiered at Steppenwolf last year.

But anyway, yeah, what does this say about Metcalf and Mantello that they'd go into partnership with rude Rudin not once but often?

He owned it. Own it! I'm available, Scott. I was in Chicago!

Swimming with the Sharks

Rest In Peace.

According to “Page Six,” an assistant was once late to pick Rudin up from the airport. “My last day is today,” the assistant said. “Your last moment is now,” Rudin allegedly replied, forcing him out of the car onto the Triborough Bridge.

Call me perverse, but this gave me a laugh.

I’m next!

You’re going start to see a lot of this retrenchment and rehabilitation of people who were exiled during the #metoo era. We got some great outcomes from that period but let’s be honest, it was an over correction in many ways. Scott Rudin is a good example of someone whose excesses could have and should have been handled through the normal social and professional channels. Now it appears that is exactly what has happened. He probably didn’t deserve to be exiled for life, very few people deserve that outcome.

Perhaps being nice isn't the path to greatness, but I'm happy to hear Mr. Rudin will be trying not to throw things or hurt anyone's feelings.

I worked for him briefly in 1994. Lasted 3 months. It was the most harrowing experience imaginable. The only slight saving grace was his head of development, Raymond Bongiovani. He was kind and tried to shield me and another assistant from the worst of Rudin’s ire. Sadly Raymond died not too long after.

Weirdly, about two years later, I was having lunch in Chelsea when in walked Rudin. He sat a few tables away and fucking cruised me. Jesus, I almost vomited on the spot, it was so gross and disturbing. I looked a little different (had a crew cut and I was a bit more muscle-y) so I guess he didn’t recognize me.

People like this don’t change.

Holed up on Long. Island. Says it all.

R20 that is a,very specific example of abuse unlike the accusations leveled against Ellen.

Is there any hope for us?

r30, how would you suggest any of those #metoo era scalawags might have been handled any differently or more fairly? Most of them were lucky to only lose their jobs and social standing.

He sounds tremendous.

Did Meryl know?

The man IS an ass. Probably still is. BUT .... he produced good stuff, made people money. You know The Show Business: all is forgiven when the $$$s roll in. Shows he will do will be welcome. (Always felt he has another loved musical in him, like his Midler DOLLY.)

Weinstein made careers and money and he is imprisoned

Rudin has excellent taste but it seems like absolute torture to be in a room with him. God help that man if ever throws anything at me.

I was summoned to his office to discuss a possible ad buy. I was prepared for the very worst but the Scott Rudin I was met was obsequious to the point of bizarre. He was essentially asking for insane rates that would’ve made taking his business a waste of time and a bad business deal. He promised volume but that’s it. I held the line and nothing came from it. I remember a nervous assistant and thinking “if these walls could talk.”

Wasn’t the Les Grossman character in Tropic Thunder based on him? Definitely looked like him.

I was once set up on a date with him, maybe 35 years ago, through a director who'd worked with him and, weirdly, liked him. It was awful. He was either completely uninterested in me or he was just basically rude and self-absorbed. Either way, it was one of the worst dinners of my life.

Rudin sounds like everyone I have encountered in my personal and professional life.

That is the problem.

His behavior is normal and normal is unhealthy.

He's gonna get a pass for his behavior because the entertainment industry is one of the last American industry that was profitable and it's struggling right now.

Unfortunately, for a lot of older men, behavior like this in the 70s, 80s, 90s wasn't uncommon. I saw a massive shift in exec behavior between 1990s and 2010s - enforced by HR.

BUT, some of these guys never got the memo because they owned their company.

With a lot of these stories, there's always tales of lawyers being called afterwards and the issue being resolved/'settled'. I have to think the 'settlement' was the attorneys threatening to blacklist and kill these kids' careers rather than any financial settlement - because how would any businessman keep paying out on these things? He wouldn't want to admit fault or pay ANYTHING.

He probably sold his properties and art in order to have the $$$ to self-fund the projects he wants to do. Once people see his success, then they'll want to back his productions again and 'oh that's in the past, everyone deserves a second chance' bullshit reigns.

Unfortunately, he has successfully got all of these incidents settled - unlike Weinstein where women stood up and had some evidence of sexual assault. Physical and verbal abuse are not given the same importance as sexual assault/rape. He's in prison on ONE lesser rape charge and 2 sexual assaults.

Remember though - it took YEARS to take Weinstein down. Media outlets didn't want to report it and Manhattan DA didn't want to press charges (against police's advice).

As long as he can make money, his awful behavior will be forgiven or simply ignored.

And I'm sorry about Laurie Metcalf helping to normalize him.

R36, a better questions would be, WHO did not actually deserve the punishment they received?

It’s not an incredibly long list, to be sure, but there are many people on that list, and they should probably be allowed back into society.

Laurie Metcalfe is 69 an age where work can be hard to get so of course she's gonna support him.

... Metcalf.

R49 - yes poor Laurie - being a highly-paid regular on a weekly sitcom - so desperately needs the work! It's only$375,000 per episode - how do expect to live off of THAT?

She's consistently worked on stage, TV and film for 40 years.

I think she's hesitant about working with him which is why he's so effusive in this article in order to 'win' her over.

But the reality is - if he's producing good stuff - he doesn't necessarily need a star name attached to the project. There are a LOT of older out of work actors and actresses willing to take ANY part and there are a lot of unknowns who would do anything for the opportunity.

Actors are sometimes given TOO much credit for a success or failure of a film. They can only do so much - and we've seen time and again, little unknown actors become stars for a great film with a good storyline.

Why is Laurie Metcalfe getting all the heat? Shouldn't she share some with Joe Mantello?

The man thinks I am a genius and he's right.

When has Rudin ever produced anything on Broadway without a star lead?

I agree about Mantello. He should be answering to all this.

He should simply host an aged asshole roundtable - Chevy Chase, Chris Pratt, Veronica Hamel, Fay Dunaway. Yes, Chris, you aged quickly and nobody likes you.

Laurie just started in that play at Steppenwolf, where she was a founding member. He's taking his money and bringing it to Broadway - which is great for Steppenwolf and all and would be hard to turn down. Plus she's guaranteed the starring role.

I could see Mantello taking this if it's already been a success and had great reviews.

The other 3 projects? Sounds more like Rudin's plans than firm commitments. I would be pissed if I was Metcalfe and Mantello - he's literally hanging his comeback on both of their names.

It still looks bad for both of them, regardless.

He should do something with Kevin Spacey, maybe Kevin as Gore Vidal and John Lithgow as William f. Buckley.

Veronica Hamel?

Lithgow would make a chilling WF Buckley, he can go really dark.

I worked as a stand-in and background actor on many of Scott Rudin’s projects. I remember him patiently getting in the back of the crew line for lunch during The Stepford Wives. He never cut the line-something he was actually entitled to do.

Yeah - they talk about his immense charm that he could turn on and off - just like Weinstein.

Successful assholes know they have to play both sides - you can't be an asshole/demon to people 100% of the time and expect things to get done. 80% charming and amazing/20% tyrannical nightmare - keeps people guessing and on their toes, while still keeping this veneer of "well if I just work harder, I'll get the 80% great Scott and not the 20%". It's a head game.

That's the problem with people like this - they reserve their horrible behavior for a select few - which is how they get away with it.

I highly doubt he has changed just because he spent a little more time in the Hamptons.

Sometimes, the only cure for narcissism is a punch to the mouth. My hunch is Rudin has a few coming his way.

One night, some years ago, I was standing outside a theatre where a Scott Rudin-produced play was in previews. Apparently, I was too close to the stage door entrance. This egomaniac arrived in his tinted-windowed SUV, got out, and pushed me out of the way to make more room for himself to go in. I yelled "Excuse me!" and how he responded isn't a comment I care to repeat.

And Mantello has all that "Wicked' money also, so he is not hurting either. I saw the Hunter play in Chicago, and it is not a great play either. Hunter has never been on Broadway but he has, at least, two better plays: "The Case....God" and his latest one "Grangeville."

I remember one of my first intern jobs in college was working for a casting director who was working on a film Scott Rudin as working on - Twilight with Reese Witherspoon. I had no idea who anyone in the industry was. I remember getting a call and walking to her office saying - "There is a Scott Rudin? on the phone for you.." She always died and couldn't pick up the phone fast enough. I do remember dropping stuff off at his office in Midtown. It was a cloudy day and the office windows were able the low lying clouds. All you could see were the neighbouring buildings.

That job was pretty cool. I got to meet a lot actresses with major careers or names now who were jus starting off then - Including the biggest laugh in the office when JLO's agent (after reading the description of the Reese character) submitted her anyway for the role.

R63-You actually stole someone's real-life story from the comments in The NY Times article? You're pretty fucking low. And stupid. And an asshole.

R66 is the Stolen Valor police

The husband R11 is a great fat ugly pig just like Scott and just as nasty. His name is John Barlow and had some low rent PR firm which may or may not still be in existence. I work in the industry and the stories I heard would curl your hair. However, I have to say Scott was always nice to me in public, even if I saw him the street. I guess I dodged a bullet.