Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore both responded to Vili Fualaau’s criticism of May December on Sunday, emphasizing the movie was not meant to tell the exact story of his relationship with ex Mary Kay Letourneau.
“It’s not based on them,” Portman told Entertainment Tonight from the red carpet at the 2024 Golden Globes. “Obviously their story influenced the culture that we all grew up in and influenced the idea. But it’s fictional characters that are really brought to life by Julianne Moore and Charles Melton so beautifully.”
May December tells the story of fictional actress Elizabeth Berry (Portman) sent to visit married couple Gracie (Moore) and Joe (Melton). Gracie met and victimized Joe when he was 13, doing time in prison for child rape before being released and marrying Joe. The two share three children, one of whom she gave birth to while in prison. Screenwriter Samy Burch has cited Letourneau — who started a sexual relationship with Fualaau when he was 12 and she was 34 in 1996 — as an inspiration for the film.
Portman added that the movie is “its own story — it’s not meant to be a biopic.”
Moore agreed with her co-star, saying the film’s director, Todd Haynes, “was always very clear when we were working on this movie that this was an original story. This was a story about these characters. So that’s how we looked at it too. This was our document. We created these characters from the page.”
Fualaau told The Hollywood Reporter in a story published last week that he was “offended by the entire project and lack of respect given to me.”
“I’m still alive and well,” Fualaau, now 40, said. “If they had reached out to me, we could have worked together on a masterpiece. Instead, they chose to do a ripoff of my original story.”
He continued, “I love movies — good movies. And I admire ones that capture the essence and complications of real-life events. You know, movies that allow you to see or realize something new every time you watch them.”
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