Kate Mara breaks silence on ‘horrendous experience’ on set of Fantastic Four reboot

Mara alleged that director Josh Trank’s behaviour towards her was ‘a power dynamic thing’

Kate Mara has broken her silence on the Fantastic Four reboot, calling the experience “horrendous”.

Mara played Sue Storm in the 2015 film, which was released to dismal box office following rumours of on-set tension and reshoots.

“I’ve never talked about it before,” Mara told Emmy Magazine. “I married one of my co-stars, so I don’t regret doing that movie at all. But do I wish I had responded differently to certain things? Yes, definitely.”

Mara, who married actor Jamie Bell after meeting him on the film, was at the centre of reports that she had been left in tears following poor interactions with director Josh Trank. Trank called the claims about his behaviour on set “either blatant mistruths or extreme exaggerations to the point of satire”.

Mara, however, called the experience of working with Trank “horrendous”, and said she believed she was treated poorly because she was a woman on a largely all-male set.

“The fact of the matter is that my two horrendous experiences with directors were male directors,” she told the magazine. “Have I not gotten along with a female director? Absolutely. And was it not the greatest work experience? Sure. But there was never a time that I felt, ‘This is happening because I’m a woman.’ Where with the male directors, it 100 percent was only happening with me; it was a power dynamic thing.”

Mara starred alongside Bell, Michael B Jordan and Miles Teller in the maligned Marvel revival, which was plagued by production problems and feuds between Trank and producers at 20th Century Fox.

Kate Mara, Miles Teller and Michael B Jordan in ‘Fantastic Four' (Fox)

In May, Trank revealed he slept with a loaded gun after receiving death threats from fans, and said working on the film left him feeling “castrated”.

“[Studio executives] really do pay attention to what people are saying on Twitter,” the director said. “They look at that and they say, ‘S***, people are freaked out about how it’s not going to be funny. So we need to spend $10m to do a comedy rewrite.’”

The Independent has reached out to Trank’s representative for comment.