The real Kim Novak says Sydney Sweeney was “totally wrong” to play her. And yeah, she said it to “The Times of London.” Publicly.
So Kim Novak went on record with The Times of London and basically said Sydney Sweeney has no business playing her. Like, no sugarcoating. No “I wish her well.” Just straight-up: “She was totally wrong to play me.”
That’s the setup. Now let’s get into it.
Kim Novak isn’t just some random person complaining on the internet. She’s the actual woman this movie Scandalous! is built around. The film is about her real-life relationship with Sammy Davis Jr. back in the 1950s.
So when she says she would’ve never approved Sweeney’s casting? That lands differently than a Twitter comment from a random film critic.
Novak’s issue isn’t just personal preference. Her exact words to The Times of London were that Sweeney “sticks out so much above the waist” — and that because of how Sweeney looks, there’s “no way” the film wouldn’t lean into the sexual side of the story.
She wanted the focus to be on what she and Davis had in common. Not the heat. The connection.
That’s not a vague complaint. She knows exactly what she doesn’t want.
Not gonna lie — this puts the whole Scandalous! production in a weird spot publicly.
Colman Domingo is directing — his directorial debut, by the way — and David Jonsson is playing Sammy Davis Jr. Sweeney is also producing the film, not just starring. She was the one who personally called Domingo, sent him the script, and basically built this project from the ground up.
She told THR‘s Scott Feinberg on the Awards Chatter podcast that Domingo was the only person she felt could tell this story the way it needed to be told.
“This is exactly what I’ve been telling my team I want to find,” — that’s what Domingo apparently told Sweeney after reading the script within hours.
So you’ve got two people all in on this thing. And then the real Kim Novak telling The Times of London she would’ve never approved any of it.
That’s a messy triangle.
But here’s what’s interesting — when Sweeney was asked on Awards Chatter whether she’d met Novak, she didn’t answer directly. What she did say was: “Colman and her have a really beautiful relationship. They’ve been talking.”
So Domingo has a relationship with Novak. Sweeney says they “connected them.” But Novak is still out here telling London newspapers the casting is wrong.
Either that talk didn’t go the way they planned — or Novak just doesn’t care about keeping it private anymore.
Look, I’ll be real — Sydney Sweeney is one of the hardest-working people in Hollywood right now, and she built this project. She’s producing it. She recruited the director. She’s raising financing. And Kim Novak is publicly going on record saying the lead is wrong for the role based on how she looks. That feels like it crosses a line.
But here’s the flip side — this is literally Novak’s life story. She doesn’t owe anyone politeness about that.
Domingo being caught in the middle of all this right before his directorial debut? Yeah. That’s a lot.
How does a movie survive its own subject publicly rejecting the lead — before a single frame is even shot?
