Kate Beckinsale Says Michael Bay Only Cared About Her Looks While Making ‘Pearl Harbor’

“I think he was baffled by me because my boobs weren’t bigger than my head,” British actress says of blockbuster director

Love And Friendship UK Premiere
LONDON, ENGLAND – MAY 24: Kate Beckinsale attends the UK premiere "Love And Friendship" at The Curzon Mayfair on May 24, 2016 in London, England.

Kate Beckinsale didn’t go as far as calling “Transformers” director Micheal Bay sexist, but the British actress definitely implied it during a recent appearance on “The Graham Norton Show.”

“I think he was baffled by me because my boobs weren’t bigger than my head and I wasn’t blonde,” she said on the BBC One show, which airs in the United Kingdom.

Beckinsale recalled her time working with Bay on the 2001 period film “Pearl Harbor,” and accused the director of caring much less about her acting chops than the acting talent of her male co-stars, Ben Affleck and Josh Hartnett.

“I don’t think I fit the type of actress Michael Bay had met before,” she said. “When we were promoting the film, Michael was asked why he had chosen Ben and Josh, and he said, ‘I have worked with Ben before and I love him, and Josh is so manly and a wonderful actor. Then when he was asked about me, he’d say, ‘Kate wasn’t so attractive that she would alienate the female audience.’”

“He kept saying it everywhere we went, and we went to a lot of places,” she added.

The damning evidence to support Beckinsale’s claim was unearthed by Vanity Fair, which cited a Movieline interview displaying Bay’s quote: “I didn’t want someone who was too beautiful. Women feel disturbed when they see someone’s too pretty… I’m not saying Kate’s not pretty… [she] is very funny, could hang with the guys. She’s not so neurotic about everything, like some actresses.”

Bay has been criticized multiple times for treating women poorly on his film sets, and was said to be the cause of Megan Fox’s departure from the third “Transformers” installment.

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