Amanda Redman has claimed she was harassed during a BBC audition, with an executive telling her to remove her jeans because they would “look better on the floor”.
The Good Karma Hospital star claimed the incident happened 40 years ago when she was a drama school graduate.
Speaking in the new edition of Radio Times, she said: “This was an audition for the BBC. I walked in and the guy said: ‘Those purple velvet jeans look lovely on you, but I think they’d look better on the floor, would you take them off please?’”
She added: “It happened every day. I didn’t take them off, obviously. I burst into tears and I ran. I remember exactly who it was, but I won’t be saying. That was the norm then. I was 22 as well – a baby, really.”
Redman, who has starred in BBC shows The Importance of Being Earnest and New Tricks, said she had to endure a string of humiliating auditions in a bid to get her Equity card and launch her acting career.
In the same interview, she discussed how British audiences find sex scenes between older people “repulsive”, warning that sexism is rife in the way women over 50 are perceived.
Redman stated that, while American audiences are more at ease with seeing sexual intimacy between older characters, the UK is still prudish about it.
“I was thinking about the fact that the Americans seem less frightened of intimacy between older couples,” she said.
“I’m watching Madam Secretary and the two leads are in their late 50s and have a really healthy sexual relationship. And it’s not repulsive. We in Britain tend to shy away from that. There’s ageism involved there.”
