Jane Campion Responds To Sam Elliott, Gets Roasted For Williams Sisters Comments

Jane Campion has been on an awards hot streak with her film The Power of the Dog, and finally addressed inflammatory comments actor Sam Elliott made about her film before the Directors Guild of America Awards on Saturday night. She later apologized for comments made the following day about Serena and Venus Williams.

Elliott belittled Campion’s film in several ways in a rant during an appearance on WTF With Marc Maron, saying, “What the f––k does this woman from down there know about the American West?” He also took issue with the film’s gay themes and nitpicked aspects of its staging and wardrobe with little substantive critique.

Campion told Variety that Elliot was “being a little bit of a B-I-T-C-H,” on the red carpet for the DGA Awards. She added his comments were “a little bit sexist,” and “I consider myself a creator, and I think he sees me as a woman or something lesser first, and I don’t appreciate that.” She then took home the biggest prize of the night, the DGA Theatrical Film Prize, which felt like fitting punctuation to her warranted response.

After an awards speech the very next night, however, the director got in hot water when she made comments she later called “thoughtless” towards the Williams sisters at the Critic’s Choice Awards. As she accepted the honor for Best Director on Sunday night, she made a reference to the sisters and said, “you are such marvels, however, you do not play against the guys like I have to.”

The Williams sisters were reportedly not bothered by the remark and were later seen socializing with the director at Netflix’s afterparty. Campion’s comments were still criticized online for being rather unnecessary and technically untrue given both sisters have faced off with high-ranking male tennis players.

Campion later stated that she “made a thoughtless comment equating what I do in the film world with all that Serena and Venus Williams have achieved. I did not intend to devalue these two legendary Black women and world-class athletes.”