Colin Donnell, Alex Brightman, Richard Dreyfuss and Ian Shaw on Oct. 18, 2023.Photo:Bruce Glikas/WireImage
Bruce Glikas/WireImage
Richard Dreyfussisn’t on board with how he’s portrayed in the new Broadway show about the making ofJaws.
Dreyfussposed for photos with the show’s castwhen he visited the show. He toldVanity Fairin an interview later that he found the experience “pretty awful.”
“Ian — who has more than any right to write whatever he wants — never called me and said, ‘Give me some background,' " he said. “Or, ‘Give me your take on this and this.’ And they just decided to make my character a big jerk.”
Ian previously told PEOPLE in a Sept. 14 interview aboutThe Shark Is Brokenthat his play is “certainly a spiritually accurate picture of the three"Jawsactors.
“Robert was very outspoken and extroverted and his traumas are described in the play to some degree,” he said of the depictions of his father and Dreyfuss. “So his response to that was to sort of take on the world and to be this sort of warrior. Then you’ve got Richard, who’s more introspective and internal and anxious.”
Colin Donnell, Alex Brightman, Whoopi Goldberg, Richard Dreyfuss and Ian Shaw on Oct. 18, 2023.Bruce Glikas/WireImage
The play premiered in Scotland at the2019 Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Ian, 53, brought the play to Broadway with costarsAlex Brightman, who plays Dreyfuss, andColin Donnell, who plays the late Roy Scheider, in July for a run at New York City’s John Golden Theatre that is scheduled to close Nov. 19.
WhileThe Shark Is Brokendepicts a fractured, antagonistic relationship between Dreyfuss and Robert on the movie’s famous boat TheOrca, Dreyfuss toldVanity Fairhis relationship with Robert was not portrayed accurately.
Alex Brightman and Richard Dreyfuss on Oct. 18, 2023.Bruce Glikas/WireImage
“That was the only day I lost my sense of humor,” he said. “That was not a feud. A feud went on forever. We never had any bad feeling between us, ever.”
Dreyfuss added that his problem with the show “is that they made my character the fool.” “They didn’t do that to Roy, and they didn’t do that to Robert,” he said. “And that hurt because it wasn’t true.”
He also claimed he only began to hear stories of a supposed feud between him and Robert onJaws' set in recent years. He attributed some of those stories to directorSteven Spielbergand one of the movie’s screenwriters, Carl Gottlieb, whom Dreyfuss said “knew better, knew that there was no feud.”
Alex Brightman and Richard Drefyuss on Oct. 18, 2023.Bruce Glikas/WireImage
“There was an ongoing kind of humor between us,” he told the outlet. “If you only saw us on the set, then you might think that there was something — a feud that was going on — but it was never real. Never. And I hold that against Carl and Steven.”
“I have enormous respect for Steven’s talent as a director,” Dreyfuss added. “I guess I don’t have as much for his talent as a friend.”
A rep for Spielberg did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment.
Dreyfuss toldVanity Fairhe chose to publicly speak out aboutThe Shark Is Brokenbecause he is the lone surviving actor fromJaws’three leads. Robert died in 1978 at 51, and Scheider died in 2008 at 75.
“It was a great experience not only during the shoot, but for 30 years afterwards. It didn’t turn sour at all until this feud bulls— started to be gossiped about,” Dreyfuss said. “It just kind of makes a perfect thing slightly spoiled.”
source: people.com
