Yahoo Movies Heroes actor Ali Larter ‘truly sorry’ after being accused of mistreating Black co-star Leonard Roberts
Heroes actor Ali Larter has made a public apology after her co-star Leonard Roberts accused of mistreating him while they starred in the show together.
In an essay published in Variety on Wednesday (16 December), Roberts claimed that Larter – who played his wife in the hit fantasy show – treated him poorly during the first season, eventually leading to his dismissal. Roberts, who is Black, believes his ethnicity affected that decision.
The actor wrote that his character was “literally described as ‘a white man’s nightmare’ in an early draft of the pilot.
He claimed that Larter was more reluctant to film intimate scenes with him than his white co-stars, writing that when director Greg Beeman asked Larter to lower her top's straps for a bedroom scene with Roberts, he overheard her loudly telling Beeman in a meeting: “I have never been so disrespected – as an actress, a woman or a human being.”
The actor then noted how, when Larter later filmed an intimate scene with co-star Adrian Pasdar, she was by contrast “open” and “exuberant”, leading him to “wonder whether race was a factor”. Roberts was later called by show creator Tim Kring, who told him his character was being killed off “due to ‘the Ali Larter situation'” and because the two “didn’t have ‘chemistry’”.
In a statement to TVLine, Larter said: “I am deeply saddened to hear about Leonard Roberts’ experience on Heroes and I am heartbroken reading his perception of our relationship, which absolutely doesn’t match my memory nor experience on the show.”
She continued: “I respect Leonard as an artist and I applaud him or anyone using their voice and platform. I am truly sorry for any role I may have played in his painful experience during that time and I wish him and his family the very best.”
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