Eliza Dushku Accuses ‘Blade Runner 2049’ Stunt Coordinator of Sexual Assault When She Was 12
Eliza Dushku has accused stunt coordinator Joel Kramer of sexual molestation and assault during the filming of “True Lies,” at which time she was 12 years old and he was 36. In an emotional Facebook post, the actress recalls the alleged incident in painstaking detail, as well as the aftermath: Dushku says she was injured in a stunt gone wrong after her adult female friend confronted Kramer on set.
“I remember, so clearly 25 years later, how Joel Kramer made me feel special, how he methodically built my and my parents’ trust, for months grooming me,” she writes. “I remember vividly how he methodically drew the shades and turned down the lights; how he cranked up the air-conditioning to what felt like freezing levels, where exactly he placed me on one of the two hotel room beds, what movie he put on the television (Coneheads); how he disappeared in the bathroom and emerged, naked, bearing nothing but a small hand towel held flimsy at his mid-section.”
“I remember what I was wearing (my favorite white denim shorts, thankfully, secured enough for me to keep on),” Dushku continues. “I remember how he laid me down on the bed, wrapped me with his gigantic writhing body, and rubbed all over me. He spoke these words: ‘You’re not going to sleep on me now sweetie, stop pretending you’re sleeping,’ as he rubbed harder and faster against my catatonic body. When he was ‘finished’, he suggested, ‘I think we should be careful…,’ [about telling anyone] he meant. I was 12, he was 36.”
In the weeks following, Dushku says Kramer “grew cold” and that “everything felt different on the set.”
She’s also unequivocal in attributing her on-set injury, which resulted in broken ribs, to Kramer. “To be clear, over the course of those months rehearsing and filming True Lies, it was Joel Kramer who was responsible for my safety on a film that at the time broke new ground for action films. On a daily basis he rigged wires and harnesses on my 12 year old body. My life was literally in his hands: he hung me in the open air, from a tower crane, atop an office tower, 25+ stories high. Whereas he was supposed to be my protector, he was my abuser.”
Dushku credits the many other women who’ve come forward with similar stories in recent months with inspiring her to share her experiences, as well as the fact that she recently learned Kramer remains active in the industry to this day — he’s worked on “Blade Runner 2049,” “Westworld,” “The Conjuring 2,” “Fast 7,” “True Blood,” and “RoboCop” in the last few years. Read her full account here.
