Kim Novak has once again voiced concerns about the upcoming Sydney Sweeney-led biopic Scandalous!, which charts her relationship with Sammy Davis Jr.
READ MORE: Sydney Sweeney doesn’t get why you’re obsessed with her: “I’m just being me”
Novak is synonymous with the Golden Age of Hollywood, serving as the dual face of Alfred Hitchcock’s 1958 film Vertigo. Around the same time, she entered into a clandestine relationship with the singer and actor at the height of their respective careers.
The dramatisation of their relationship marks the directorial debut of Sweeney’s Euphoria co-star Colman Domingo, with Industry star David Jonsson portraying Davis Jr. As far as Sweeney’s casting, she recently told The Times: “I would never have approved,” saying The Housemaid actress “sticks out so much above the waist.”
She added she was worried the film would focus on the sexual side of the relationship when it was really based on the two having “so much in common.”
“There’s no way it wouldn’t be a sexual relationship because Sydney Sweeney looks sexy all the time,” Novak continued. “She was totally wrong to play me. I would never have approved.”
It echoes comments Novak made to the Guardian last year, when she took issue with the project’s title.
“I don’t think the relationship was scandalous,” she said. “He’s somebody I really cared about. We had so much in common, including that need to be accepted for who we are and what we do, rather than how we look. But I’m concerned they’re going to make it all sexual reasons.”
Novak and Davis Jr. first met in the mid-fifties, when they both appeared as guests on The Steve Allen Show, beginning a secret relationship shortly afterward due to the period’s attitude to interracial relationships at the time. Jim Crow segregation laws were enforceable at that time in America.
Novak was a signee to Columbia Pictures, and when its co-founder Harry Cohn found out about the affair, he threatened Davis Jr. with a mob hit and insisted that Novak dating a Black man would hurt box office sales, leading to the two separating.
Speaking about the film back in 2024, Domingo told Deadline he hoped to start production after he and Sweeney wrapped the long-gestating third season of Euphoria, which is due out next month.
“Hopefully we’ll make a beautiful, sweet film that’s really about the possibility of love, but under many eyes, trying to have privacy, trying to have love, trying to have a life,” he said. “And I think it’s something that Sydney and I both know very well. We’re trying to advocate for your humanity again in your life.”
Earlier this year, it was reported that Sweeney could be in trouble for throwing a string of bras on the iconic Hollywood sign as part of a stunt for her new lingerie brand.
The publicity stunt came just months after she caused controversy for her involvement in a commercial for American Eagle jeans, which received criticism for what was viewed as racial undertones in the campaign’s message. In December, the actor spoke out on the issue after refusing to comment on it for months, saying she “doesn’t support the views” associated with the controversy.
Prior to that campaign, the star also made headlines for selling soap infused with her own bath water.
The post Kim Novak criticises Sydney Sweeney’s casting in ‘Scandalous!’ biopic: “She was totally wrong to play me” appeared first on NME.
