Actresses Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore responded to Vili Fualaau’s criticism over the Netflix film “May December,” arguing the story was not intended to be a biopic about Fualaau’s controversial relationship with teacher Mary Kay Letourneau.
Fualaau said last week he felt “offended” Netflix didn’t consult with him about the film, calling it a “ripoff of my original story.”
Letourneau was arrested in 1997 for the statutory rape of Fualaau, whom she began sexually abusing when he was 12 years old and she was 34. She pleaded guilty, and went on to serve seven years in prison. The pair had two children together, born in 1997 and 1998, and they married in 2005.
“I’m very sorry that he feels that way,” Moore told “Entertainment Tonight” while on the red carpet at the 81st Golden Globes on Sunday.
“I mean, Todd [Haynes] was always very clear when we were working on this movie that this was an original story, this was a story about these characters. So that’s how we looked at it, too. This was our document, we created these characters from the page and together,” Moore continued.
Her remarks echo those of writer Samy Burch, who told The Hollywood Reporter in November that while Fualaau’s story was the “seed” for director Haynes, “it was important to me that this wasn’t the Mary Kay Letourneau story.”
Portman reacted similarly to Fualaau’s criticism, telling “Entertainment Tonight,” “I’m so sorry to hear that. It’s not based on them, it’s…obviously their story influenced the culture that we all grew up in and influenced the idea. But it’s fictional characters that are really brought to life by Julianne Moore and Charles Melton so beautifully, and yeah, it’s its own story, it’s not meant to be a biopic.”
Portman portrays the role of Elizabeth Berry, a Hollywood actress who researches a controversial married couple: Gracie, played by Moore, and Joe, played by Charles Melton. The couple’s romance emerged when Joe was 13, and the two eventually had children together and got married.
“I’m still alive and well,” Fualaau said in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter last week. “If they had reached out to me, we could have worked together on a masterpiece. Instead, they chose to do a ripoff of my original story.”
“I’m offended by the entire project and the lack of respect given to me — who lived through a real story and is still living it,” Fualaau added.
Moore was nominated for a Golden Globe in the motion picture category for the Best Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role. She told “Entertainment Tonight” the role had its challenges.
“It was a very challenging part,” she told the outlet. “She’s somebody who has transgressed in a major way and I think in order to justify what she’s done, she sort of tells a story about her life. There’s a lot of– I don’t know it’s interesting. You know Natalie’s character comes in and these two women are in a struggle for narrative dominance. Who gets to tell this story who’s right, who’s wrong.”
Fualaau and Letourneau divorced in 2019, and Letourneau died in 2020.