Vincent Gallo says filmmakers ‘leaked false rumor’ he’s in new Karla Sofía Gascón film: ‘Clowns’

Vincent Gallo has alleged that Italian filmmakers “leaked a false rumor” about his reported involvement in an upcoming movie starring controversial Emilia Pérez actress Karla Sofía Gascón, the Brown Bunny actor-director exclusively tells Entertainment Weekly.

After The Life Lift director Stefania Rossella Grassi told EW on April 17 that her planned thriller would be “costarring Vincent Gallo” opposite Gascón — a pairing she described as a “match made in hell” — Gallo shared his version of events, alleging that Grassi’s team “presented the project as if it was financed,” and that he “listened to their babble” as a result.

“As I learned the project was not financed or in real production, I told them I would not discuss the project further until they had financing and a schedule. They then asked if they could use my name to help raise financing. I clearly said no,” the 64-year-old explains via email. “In fact, I also warned them not to use my name in any way or announce to anyone I was committed to the film.”

Gallo says he told the filmmakers he would not speak about the project until it was financed and scheduled to shoot.

Shortly after, he alleges, “they knowingly, without my permission, leaked a false rumor to the press that I was contracted.”

Though Grassi released a press statement on May 8 indicating that The Life Lift team did not find “the necessary common ground during recent dialogue” to “reach summary terms before an effective SAG contract” with Gallo and that negotiations with him concluded, she provided earlier correspondence in April indicating that Gallo would definitively star in the film.

When reached for a response to Gallo’s reaction to her claim, Grassi tells EW Monday via email that “Mr. Vincent Gallo has been in contact with director Stefania Rossella Grassi since February 2025, and expressed his support for the The Life Lift project as documented by copious emails.” (Screenshots of emails provided to EW by Gallo, however, indicate that representatives for the film contacted Gallo in 2022 for a separate project about a computer hacker.)

Grassi alleges that Gallo “requested sums in advance to the production without signing the contract proposals” after she distributed press information about the film in April.

“Mr. Gallo then received documented contract proposals from the production company summarizing the agreements reached by email, but Mr. Gallo asked for ‘unanticipated’ amounts in the contract without signing the standard SAG contract for the The Life Lift project, which also, based on his membership, led to writing a specific role for Vincent Gallo,” Grassi writes. “The production still has its doors open for Mr. Gallo, but it is necessary that the star understands that every production plan involves stages.”

In response to Grassi’s email, Gallo tells EW that the “statement from them is simply untrue,” and alleges that they first spoke with him directly about the potential film in 2022, as he doesn’t use an agent and reaches deals with filmmakers directly.

“In 2022 we left it at, ‘I don’t discuss projects that are not financed.’ A couple months ago, the director and her partner presented the project again in a way that appeared financed and ready, and so I discussed it with them. However, when it became clear again the production was not even close to being financed, and they were only talking out of their asses, I made it clear I would not discuss the project further,” Gallo claims. “They asked if they could use my name to help with financing. I stated clearly I would not allow them to use my name for financing. In an email sent in early March 2025, I wrote, ‘I cannot discuss projects that are not financed and scheduled,’ and warned them they were not authorized to use my name in any way to promote the film or procure financing.”

He reiterates what he said previously, that they went ahead and announced his involvement anyway.

“Knowing how unethical they are, I would not consider the film under any circumstance,” Gallo concludes. “They are clowns.”

Gallo also provided EW with screenshots of what he says are email exchanges with Grassi and a producer named Carmela (a last name is not given, though the film’s IMDbPro credits list a producer named Carmela Arena).

In the March 11 correspondence, Gallo writes that “the contract if [sic] too vague and there is no guarantees. Basically it seems you do not have financing and simply want to attach me to find financing?” to which someone identifying themselves as Grassi responds, telling him that “we are in pre-production” and that the contract was “already signed by Karla Sofía Gascón” prior to Gallo.

“We make the changes you want to this preliminary contract. Give me your support, with your yes, to make a film that no one expects a woman to direct,” the email reads.

Another line sees Gallo responding to the person identified only as Carmela, with the actor writing, “I believe you are both serious. However I cannot think about projects that are not yet financed. It is too distracting and too often disappointing. I have shown willingness and interest. However, I cannot agree to a contract without a deposit and something close to a schedule. Kind regards.”

After EW requested a response from Grassi to Gallo’s email screenshots, the filmmaker provided a final statement.

Want more movie news? Sign up for Entertainment Weekly‘s free newsletter to get the latest trailers, celebrity interviews, film reviews, and more.

“The film deals with an important social issue. I am sorry as a director not to see Mr. Gallo engaged in such an important topic. I’m also sorry to read these things that Mr. Gallo writes you. It’s true that I contacted Mr. Gallo in 2022, but it wasn’t for this project,” she says. “Not having ‘malice,’ I continued our conversation on the same emails, so that he would remember me. Confidential emails of our negotiations with Mr. Gallo should remain within the confidentiality of private emails. I also will not send you confidential emails on our contract negotiations and his terms which were not accepted and ended our negotiations.”

EW has reached out to Gascón for additional comment.

Upon initially announcing The Life Lift, Grassi said that the film would be “perturbing, livid, and hypnotic” in its narrative about Gabriel, a man living in a New York City apartment who becomes “persecuted” by Post-it notes inside his building’s elevator. On the notes are orders to “commit atrocious murders of three other tenants who, in turn, want to kill their next of kin,” Grassi previously told EW, with Gascón lined up to play a psychiatrist who was likened to both a god and a devil.

The role will mark Gascón’s first major part since her controversial run through the most recent awards season, which saw her make history while also fielding accusations of racism and religious bigotry over her resurfaced social media posts, though she strongly denied accusations of racism.

In a televised CNN interview, Gascón said that she “cannot step down from an Oscar nomination” after becoming the first-ever out trans woman nominated for Best Actress, adding that she had “not committed any crime” nor “harmed anyone” with her words. “I am neither racist nor anything that all these people have tried to make others believe I am,” she concluded.

Gallo has also generated controversy in the past, particularly for his conservative views.

In a 2018 essay for Another Man, Gallo wrote, “I like Donald Trump a lot and am extremely proud he is the American President. And I’m sorry if that offends you.”

He earlier drew criticism for a scene in his 2003 film The Brown Bunny, which saw actress Chloë Sevigny perform “unsimulated” oral sex on him.

“I think it was a way of kind of reclaiming myself, which sounds odd, but after the celebrity and stuff, being like: ‘No, that’s not who I am, I’m this other thing, and this is what I stand for.’ Or wanting to push the envelope,” Sevigny said of the controversy at the 2017 Provincetown Film Festival, per W. “I got my first studio film after that. I’d never been offered a studio film. It was Zodiac. I don’t think it really hurt me, necessarily. I mean, it hurt me, in a lot of ways…Some relationships have had trouble with it. Of course, my mom and I don’t talk about it.”