After sharing one of the most tense episodes of her career, Rebecca Ferguson has once again commented on that terrible memory during an interview with Harper’s Bazaar: the time one of her co-stars yelled at her for no reason during a film shoot.
Although her testimony, made public for the first time in 2024, sparked a “search” on social media to identify the aggressor, the actress still refuses to share the name of the person involved.
Ferguson argues that she never intended to point the finger at a specific person, but rather to reflect on the power dynamics on set and how she herself learned—fearfully, but resolutely—to stand up for herself.
“It wasn’t about the person. “It was about me,” Ferguson explained to Harper’s Bazaar. “It was very frightening. At the time, I didn’t know how to say, ‘Hey, can we talk privately?’ Now I want to believe I could have taken this person aside.”
The conflict that prompted her to set limits
The incident first came to light in February 2024, during the press tour for Dune: Part Two. On the podcast Reign With Josh Smith, Ferguson recounted working with a co-star she described as “an absolute jerk” who made her cry on set. According to her account, the actor—whom she never identified—would have outbursts of frustration, yelling and humiliating her in front of everyone.
“This person literally looked at me in front of the whole crew and said, ‘You call yourself an actress? Is this what I have to work with?’“Ferguson recalled. “I just stood there, completely broken.”
The actress explained that the situation was especially difficult because her co-star was first in the production hierarchy. “Since this person was number one on the call sheet, there was no safety net for me. Nobody had my back,” she stated.
Despite the fear she felt, Ferguson asserted that the incident marked the first time she openly stood up for herself on set. The day after the altercation, she returned to filming determined to draw a line. “I arrived and told my co-star, ‘Get off my set. Go to hell. I’m going to act in front of a tennis ball. I never want to see you again,'” she recounted on the podcast.
“The producers approached me and said, ‘You can’t do this to the number one. We have to let this person be on set,’” she recalled. The solution was a minimal agreement. “Then I had that person turn around and I was going to act by looking at the back of their head. And I did it. I was very scared. “I still feel that way now as I say it,” she confessed.
Now, in her recent statements, she insisted that today she would have more tools to handle a similar situation and highlighted the progress—albeit incomplete—within the industry. “A lot of people say we’ve become too ‘woke,’ but I don’t think so, I think it’s great,” she told the magazine. “The pendulum needs to swing to the other side so we can find a balance in the middle.”
Support and Clarifications
It’s worth mentioning that after her story went viral two years ago, Ferguson received messages of support, including a public one from Dwayne Johnson, her co-star in Hercules (2014). “YO hate to hear about this, but I love seeing her stand up to the trash,” the actor wrote in X. “Rebecca was my guardian angel sent from heaven to our set. I love that woman. “I would like to know who did this.”
At the same time, the actress said several former colleagues had called her, worried about the speculation being generated. “I got calls from amazing co-stars I worked with, saying,‘You do understand what you’ve done, right?’ And I thought, ‘Oh my God, no, I hadn’t thought of it that way.’ Well, it’s not my responsibility, to be honest. My story is my story, and if you’re a good person, then you have nothing to worry about,” she said on a radio show.
In that context, Ferguson also ruled out two of the most frequently mentioned names: Hugh Jackman and Tom Cruise. She had nothing but praise for the latter, with whom she worked on three Mission: Impossible films. “He comes with a purpose… he’s like a guy who just loves to play, and he delivers a safe and professional set,” she said of the action star. “That balance is what makes you want to try new things.”
