Actress Sydney Chandler was quietly pulled from Variety’s magazine cover after she raised eyebrows with her behavior on the press tour for FX’s big-budget “Alien: Earth” series.
Chandler, the daughter of Emmy-winning “Friday Night Lights” star Kyle Chandler, was cast in the lead role of the blockbuster sci-fi series.
But in the lead-up to the anticipated drop on August 12, the 29-year-old reportedly ruffled the feathers of several Variety staffers when she refused to participate in a filmed Q&A segment alongside co-star Timothy Olyphant, 57, and showrunner Noah Hawley, 58.
In an article released by the publication on Wednesday, Variety claimed that Chandler’s reps had reached out the day before the scheduled shoot to say she was not “willing to participate” in the video.
Her team expressed that she had no interest in sitting down with “two older men” for a game of “How Well Do They Know Each Other?”
Being receptive to her concerns, Variety said it. provided the actress with a list of questions that the segment contains ahead of time, and had asked Chandler to respond with a list of questions she felt comfortable with.
The alternative proposals her team had later sent through were not accepted by Variety. The publication’s Editor-in-Chief, Ramin Setoodeh, then decided to remove her from the cover shoot altogether.
In emails and text messages exchanged between FX, Variety and Chandler’s publicists, the team allegedly had also tried negotiating a way for Chandler to shoot the cover the following day.
But instead, the actress had pulled out once again after her publicist claimed that she was “very sick.”
Hawley, an Emmy winner best known for creating FX series “Fargo” and “Legion,” told Variety that he was “disappointed” in the leading lady’s behavior.
“The show is built around Sydney’s character, and the work she did as a professional was tremendous,” he told the outlet.
“I’m disappointed that my female-centric show, based on a female-facing franchise, does not have my lead actress on the cover. It felt awkward to be there with Tim [Olyphant] without her.”
In a follow-up interview with the publication, Chandler insisted that she’s “just a private person” who is “new to press.”
“It’s a bit out of my comfort zone,” she told them. “I was more than happy to talk about anything and everything about the show; that’s what I’m here to promote.”
The Post has reached out to FX, Variety and Chandler for comment.
