What started as a conversation about strong female roles quickly turned into something else entirely when Olivia Munn revealed a baffling experience with a former co-star during a recent stop on The Drew Barrymore Show.
On the Wednesday, April 8 episode, the Your Friends & Neighbors star got specific, recalling a moment when a co-star halted filming over a scene in which her character saved his life.
Munn began the story on the familiar on-set dynamic from her action-heavy roles:
“There have been a few times where I’ve been filming something, and my character was either, like, CIA, or a cop, or something, and there’s been scenes where my character has been the one to save the other character.”
Munn has taken on physically demanding roles in films like X-Men: Apocalypse (2016) and The Predator (2018), often playing highly capable characters, an experience that made the moment she described stand out even more.
She then recalled a past project in which she and a male co-star were staged to fight side by side in a bunker, where the tension had less to do with choreography and more with ego.
She walked through the scene that sparked the conflict:
“If you read the script, it was that he was guarding his side, I was guarding my side, then we switch sides, and then there’s a guy that was coming for him who was gonna shoot him in the back, so I shoot him.”
Munn did not name the project or reveal the actor’s identity, but said the issue escalated quickly when her co-star realized how the moment would play out.
Munn remembered the moment her co-star pushed back mid-production:
“We’re about to shoot and, somehow, I guess he didn’t read the script, and in that moment, he realized, ‘Wait, wait, wait. Hold on. She can’t save me. No, no. She can’t save me.’”
Now, Munn has starred in more than 30 films across genres. Though her action résumé includes a smaller number of high-profile, stunt-heavy roles, she's hardly a newcomer when it comes to stunts.
She described the awkward standoff that followed:
"Everything stops down, and there was no insecurity about being obnoxious, and everyone hearing this and [him] being like, ‘She can’t save me! We’re not doing this.’”
After about 45 minutes of back-and-forth, Munn said she offered a workaround that slightly reframed the action but ultimately left the outcome unchanged.
Munn explained the compromise she pitched to move filming forward:
"I said, ‘OK, how about instead of my character saving you, it’s just that we switch because it’s time for us to switch, and so this is my guy to get.’”
The adjustment was enough to satisfy her co-star, and the scene moved forward. But, as Munn pointed out, the actual mechanics of the moment didn’t change at all.
So, Munn dropped the punchline behind the workaround:
"It's just what he thought! I was doing the exact same thing!"
Apparently, the only thing that needed rewriting was the male ego attached to it. The clip ended with Drew Barrymore reacting in disbelief, as Munn leaned into the absurdity of the situation.
You can view the moment here:
- YouTubeThe Drew Barrymore Show
It didn’t take long for the moment to spark reactions online, with viewers zeroing in on the unnamed co-star’s now-viral objection.
View the reactions (and lucky guesses on the co-star) here:
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While Munn didn’t offer clues about the actor’s identity, the story added context to how she approaches her career, particularly when it comes to avoiding roles that flatten female characters.
Munn outlined the standard she set early in her career:
“I’ve looked at so many different scripts, and a lot of times the women are portrayed in kind of a naggy way. I had this thing that I decided at one point early in my career, like, I only wanted to do projects where she would exist even if he didn’t exist. You know, that it wasn’t just his story.”
That perspective carries into her latest project, Your Friends & Neighbors, where she stars alongside Jon Hamm and Amanda Peet in the Apple TV+ series. The show follows Hamm’s Andrew “Coop” Cooper, a hedge fund manager who, after losing his job, begins stealing from those closest to him to maintain his lifestyle.
Munn plays Sam Levitt, a self-made woman navigating an affluent world she wasn’t born into. It's a role that reflects the kind of independence Munn has long prioritized, both in the characters she chooses and in the stories she’s willing to tell about her experiences on set.
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