Lori Metcalfe knew the question would come “at some point,” so she was prepared, but when The New Yorker Michael Shulman finally asked about her many collaborations with producer Scott Rudin, and the Tony Award winner “fumbled over her words” as she defended his return.
“It’s very sensitive. It’s very difficult,” she said in a lengthy profile published today to promote their latest partnership, a new Broadway revival of the Arthur Miller play. Death of a salesmannow on stage at the Winter Garden Theater in New York. “He talked about his treatment, he apologized, he owned what he said, he thought about it,” she said, reading from notes per Shulman. “He was in rehab. So I think unless we think there’s no possibility of true rehabilitation, we shouldn’t be asking people to try to do that.”
The once prolific producer was a Hollywood powerhouse who produced films and stage shows at an impressive clip for decades. That was until A.J Hollywood Reporter An investigation published in 2021 detailed multiple allegations of abusive behavior from former employees who claimed to have witnessed him throwing objects, berating employees and, in one case, hitting an assistant’s computer screen with his hand. The employee ended up in the emergency room. “Everyone knows he’s an absolute monster,” one employee said.
Rodin withdrew from his professional life for several years and spent time in therapy. In a New York Times In an interview published in March 2025, Rudin took responsibility for many of his actions and said he had more self-control. “I’ve learned that I don’t care as much, and I think that’s a very healthy thing,” he said. “I don’t want to let anyone down.”
The interview came as he prepared for a professional comeback with Barry Diller’s production of the film Samuel D. Hunter Little Bear Ridge Road Starring Metcalf and Micah Stock, a production that had a limited run. “I’m going to try to come back and do some good work, and people will feel what they feel,” Rudin said at the time. “And if some people are really angry about it, they have every right to be angry about it.”
with Death of a salesmanMetcalfe was “doubling down” on her partnership with Rodin by starring in successive productions of the “controversial figure,” according to The New Yorker. Their history is deeper. Rudin is credited with suggesting Metcalf for a part in Greta Gerwig’s Lady BirdWhich made her nominated for an Oscar. She has won back-to-back Tony Awards A Doll’s House, Part 2 and Three tall womenBoth were produced by Rodin.
As it turns out, Metcalf was the key to Rudin’s return. Little Bear Ridge Road It was originally commissioned by Steppenwolf Theater Company, a Chicago company that Metcalfe co-founded. It starred in the original 2024 Steppenwolf production, and when Rudin offered to bring it to Broadway, Steppenwolf declined to work with it, because The New Yorker.
“It didn’t feel aligned with our values and mission that he would return as Steppenwolf,” a source told Shulman. “At a precarious moment when we were rebuilding from the pandemic, why would we partner with someone who the industry felt so hurt by? We can’t be a way for someone to prove they’ve changed.”
The situation became complicated and left Metcalfe “distraught”. The New Yorker. It “took the unusual step of threatening to withdraw from Steppenwolf” unless the theater company — co-founded by Terry Kinney, Jeff Perry, Gary Sinise and John Malkovich — relinquished its rights to the production, which it did. When Shulman asked to explain what happened, Metcalf broke down in tears.
“I can’t really get into that, because that’s something I haven’t understood myself, which is my relationship there,” she said, adding that she did not participate in Steppenwolf’s 50th anniversary season. She’s still figuring it out, too. “I want to celebrate this, and I want to celebrate it with some of the old guard. I want to go back in time, and I want to be brave with the people who taught me to be brave. I don’t want to worry if it’s anything but PC — not to rile people up. Just to be bold.”
Bold, like you’re the first high-profile Hollywood talent to work with Rodin. “I find it hypocritical that some people want to work with him but don’t want to be the first,” she said.
