Olivia Munn claims a “Newsroom” director tried to 'ruin' her career

Olivia Munn recalls a bad experience on The Newsroom that almost cost her another project.

The Your Friends & Neighbors actress said that she and one of the show's many directors clashed over her character, Sloan Sabbith."There was one director who came in multiple times," Munn said on Monday's episode of the Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard podcast. "And there was a storyline where my character and Tom Sadoski's character are dating and falling in love. He kept trying to force me to carry that storyline only on my side."

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Olivia Munn costars on 'The Newsroom' in 2014

She described the director encouraging her to stop focusing on what her character was doing in the scene to shower Sadoski's character, Don Keefer, with attention."He's like, 'Can you look out at him and smile?' And I'm like, 'Why? She's busy doing this.' Or, 'Can you stop and snuggle up to him or flirt with him?' Or, 'Can you give him a kiss?’ And I'm like, 'This is in the middle of working.'"

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The Emmy-winning series aired for three seasons between 2012 and 2014. Created and written by Aaron Sorkin, it depicted a working TV news room with an ensemble cast that also included Jeff Daniels, Emily Mortimer, John Gallagher Jr., Alison Pill, Dev Patel, and Sam Waterston.

None of this sat well with Munn at the time, and then the conflict arose again later.

"I was on the one-yard-line for the movie, and my manager calls me and says, 'Hey, you're gonna get the role. But first, I guess there's another director who they know, and he says that, on The Newsroom, you were late all the time and really combative."

Munn insisted that wasn't true, and she suspected that what was being said about her was because of their differing views on her character.

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"I lived seven minutes from there. I was never late," Munn said. "And I was like, 'I know who this is.' He just was trying to bash me. And I told my reps, 'Please tell the directors this.' And then I still got the role. But I will always remember that, just because of our conflicts of how we approached a role, he wanted to ruin my chances of getting anything else."

Munn's post-Newsroom work has included movies Office Christmas Party, Ocean's Eight, and X-Men: Apocalypse, to name a few.

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