'He slapped my ass': Anna Faris reveals a Hollywood director harassed her in front of the whole crew

With a tsunami of sexual harassment incidents snowballing into a fully fledged Hollywood scandal in recent days, actress Anna Faris has become the latest celebrity to voice her personal ordeal. The 40-year-old actress revealed an on-set experience from the initial days of her career, when a director made her feel uncomfortable with his gesture during a shoot.

"I was doing a scene where I was on a ladder and I was supposed to be taking books off a shelf and he slapped my ass in front of the crew so hard," said Farris on the latest episode of her podcast Unqualified, as she discussed incidents of sexual misconduct at the workplace with her guest Arielle Kebbel.

"And all I could do was giggle," the actress-turned-author recalled.

Explaining how the unwarranted move from the director affected her, The House Bunny star said that she was made to feel "small" in front of the whole crew.

"I remember looking around and I remember seeing the crewmembers being like, 'Wait, what are you going to do about that? That seemed weird.' And that's how I dismissed it. I was like, 'Well, this isn't a thing. Like, it's not that big of a deal. Buck up, Faris. Like, just giggle,'" she said adding, "But it made me feel small. He wouldn't have done that to the lead male."

The Mom star went on to talk about how one is conditioned to laugh off such matters of harassment and how reacting in any other fashion might attract labels like "bitch" or "difficult". Bringing the conversation back to her personal experience, Faris said, "What I do is I laugh. It puts everyone at ease. That's the defense mode you go into."

Interestingly, the ordeal did not end there, as the same director reportedly made her feel inferior when she landed the job.

"I remember that same director telling my agent, who told me, that I had great legs and that was one of the reasons that I got hired," the Scary Movie actress recalled.

"I don't think the male lead got hired because he had great legs. Therefore I felt like I'm hired because of these elements — not because of [talent]," added Faris.

Faris' account only adds to the mountain of allegations that have come to light in the past month, following the shocking New York Times expose on movie mogul Harvey Weinstein. Since the Weinstein sexual assault scandal, several other personalities too have come under fire like director James Toback and Chris Savino, Nickelodeon producer, for their inappropriate behaviour towards female colleagues.