Showrunner of ‘One of the Biggest Shows’ Allegedly Berated Actress for Half-Hour

In an excerpt from her new book, Zosia Mamet shared a traumatic experience from her time working on one of the biggest shows on TV.

Before she became a household name among a younger generation for her role as Shoshanna Shapiro on HBO’s hit comedy Girls, the 37-year-old actress had plenty of minor TV and film roles. The daughter of famous playwright and director David Mamet, she is now a popular actress in her own right.

Her new book, a collection of essays called Does This Make Me Funny?, shares various moments from her life on stage and screen.

At the beginning of the excerpt, she said she landed a recurring role on “one of the biggest shows currently on television. The kind of show that’s a phenomenon, that makes people fall in love with TV as a medium all over again.”

“I never thought I’d get this job,” she wrote. “When I went to the audition I honestly thought I was just there for fill. So the fact that I’m here already feels like a mistake.”

Apparently, the showrunner of the series didn’t like how long Mamet’s hair was. So the show’s makeup department resorted to cutting her hair off “Sweeney Todd-style” with a straight razor.

“Nobody [on set] mentioned the length or the fact that it looked like somebody had frantically cut it with a straight razor, which they had,” she wrote.

To her awe, she was asked to return for the show’s next season. And then the showrunner had a meltdown.

“We were doing a blocking rehearsal when he showed up on set… we’re rehearsing, I walk in, I go to take the photos out of the envelope, and the showrunner calls “Cut.” Not the director of the episode, the showrunner. And we all look at each other like, Did somebody do something wrong? We all thought the scene was going fine,” she continued.

The showrunner got up out of his chair and walked towards her.

“‘What the f–k are you doing?’ To which I say, ‘Um…rehearsing?’ And then he grabs my hand that’s holding the manila envelope and he says, ‘No! What the fuck are you doing with this! That’s not how you take something out of an envelope! Do it again!’,” she wrote. “He spews the kitchen sink at me: ‘You’re doing it wrong!’ ‘How the fuck can you think that looks right at all?’ ‘That’s not how anyone would remove anything from an envelope ever!’”

She said the showrunner eventually “gave up or got bored,” and she quit the show immediately after, despite being set to film four more episodes.

Mamet did not name the showrunner or the program by name. The actress was notably a guest star on Mad Men, Matthew Weiner’s Emmy-winning AMC drama, appearing in four episodes of Season 4 but only one episode of Season 5.

“I ran into that showrunner at the Emmys a few years later. Both of our shows were nominated. He pretended not to know who I was. They swept the awards that night and part of me resented him for that. But you know, he hasn’t really made anything since,” she wrote. “And sometimes I think about him sitting in his office alone feeling sad and angry and anxious and wondering if everyone’s forgotten him, and for a moment it makes me feel sorry for him, feel compassion for him, hope that his life isn’t too bad… But let’s be real, only for a moment.”