The stuntwoman who alleges she was ambushed with an unscripted rape scene directed by Kevin Costner on the set of his western epic Horizon 2 can proceed with nine of the 10 claims in her sexual harassment and hostile work environment lawsuit against Costner, a judge ruled Thursday.
Costner had previously asked the court to dismiss the entire lawsuit. He claimed the movie is an expressive work, protected by the First Amendment, and that the stuntwoman, Devyn LaBella, had failed to adequately allege that the scene in question was added without proper notice or appropriate safeguard measures. After hearing arguments for nearly an hour, the judge sided with LaBella, finding that she deserves more time to conduct discovery and continue pursuing her claims. The next hearing in the case is set for December.
“There is a lot to be said about this decision and the rest of the case, Hollywood, and its movies. A lot doesn’t fall exactly into the labor code, and there are carve-outs for exactly the creative process we are discussing. But at this point, this early in the case … there is sufficient evidence,” Los Angeles County Judge Jon R. Takasugi said, issuing his ruling from the bench.
“I’m very grateful for the outcome,” LaBella, 34, tells Rolling Stone when leaving the courthouse Thursday with her lawyers, Dan Stormer and Kate McFarlane. “We lost on one claim and won on nine, so that’s a victory,” McFarlane says.
According to the lawsuit, LaBella was a championship-winning gymnast who pivoted to acting and signed with a leading stunt agency in 2016. She later worked on the show Yellowjackets and the blockbuster movie Barbie before she was cast as the lead stunt double for actress Ella Hunt on Horizon 2 in 2023.
LaBella claims that on May 2, 2023, Hunt “became visibly upset and walked off the set” when Costner allegedly made a “sudden script change request,” asking her to run through a scene where a character named Birke, played by actor Roger Ivens, would mount her character, Juliette, in the lead-up to a newly written, subsequent rape that would occur off-camera. After Hunt allegedly refused, LaBella was asked to “stand in” for Hunt without adequate explanation, the lawsuit states. LaBella claims she was not informed that Ivens “would mount her and violently pull her skirt up” until he was “on top of her doing so.” The stuntwoman says that the incident left her in shock and on the verge of tears, and alleges that when she reported it, she faced retaliation.
In her filings, LaBella says she willingly stood in for Hunt a day earlier for the filming of a different, carefully scripted rape scene. She said the May 1 scene involved meticulous choreography, a closed set, and the presence of an intimacy coordinator. She claims the rehearsal on May 2 lacked the same safeguards and that the new script did not mention any contact whatsoever between Birke and Juliette inside the small covered wagon where the scene was shot.
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At the hearing on Thursday, Costner’s lawyers, Martin Singer and T. Wayne Harman, pushed back. They said the script made clear that the May 2 scene was leading up to a rape that would happen off-camera because it called for the Juliette character to mouth the word, “No.” They said LaBella’s entire job on the film was to block, rehearse, and perform the scenes that Hunt did not perform due to the physicality involved.
“There was no thrusting, no gyrating, no simulated sets, none of that, OK?” Harman argued, referring to the May 2 rehearsal. “[Ivens] starts to grab at her dress. Now, she’s wearing 20 to 22 yards of fabric, right? This is the 1800s, so they wore pantaloons and eight layers of clothes,” Harman continued. “He grabs the skirt and starts to drag it up to her knee, swings his leg over, and he’s now on all fours, on top of her. That’s the shot. He’s not grinding on her. There’s no thrusting, no simulated sex. …. This was the foretelling of a rape that happens off-screen, that the audience never sees.”
Harman said there was “no evidence” to show that “an objectively reasonable person in [LaBella’s] position would find the rehearsal of a single shot so offensive that it would interfere with her work performance.” LaBella’s lawyers disagreed.
“[LaBella] has never objected to a scene like this before,” MacFarlane argued, saying her client supports the creative process, so long as it follows the rules. “She knew that this particular scene on May 2nd was a problem, that there were violations of the contract, there was a violation of the law, and she was unsafe, and she was traumatized.”
McFarlane said Costner and his team recognized the need for an intimacy coordinator on May 1, even though that scripted rape happened off-camera as well. A screenshot of the call sheet for the May 1 scene, included in the complaint, stated the set would be closed. In its short summary of the scene, it said a different actor playing a character named “Sig” would wrestle Juliette onto her wagon bed. Sig would then mount Juliette with his hand “clamped over her mouth” before he snuffed the lantern. The call sheet for the subsequent May 2 scene did not mention Birke, played by Ivens, entering the wagon. Instead, it said Sig would again enter the wagon and pull a gun out of Juliette’s hands.
“Kevin Costner admits in his declaration that both the May 1st scene and the May 2nd scene were violent scenes building up to and foretelling an actual rape,” McFarlane argued Thursday. “The crux of Ms. LaBella’s claims is not about the content of these scenes. It’s about the lack of protocols followed on day two. And that’s extremely important.”
In the end, Costner and his lawyers managed to get one claim dismissed on Thursday. The judge ruled that LaBella had failed to show “minimal merit” on her allegation that Costner “demanded” she participate in the scene, in violation of a law called the Bane Act. “Plaintiff does not identify anything Costner, or any other individual, said to her that would constitute ‘threats, intimidation, or coercion’ of the kind contemplated by the Bane Act,” the judge wrote in his final ruling.
LaBella’s lawsuit will face another hurdle when the judge considers a separate challenge known as a demurrer in December. In his declaration filed in August, Costner called LaBella’s lawsuit “deeply disappointing.”
“These allegations are so patently false I can only assume that the purpose was to use this sensationalistic language to embarrass and damage me and the Horizon movies on an ongoing basis in order to gain a massive and unjustified payday,” Costner wrote in his filing. “Equally as bad, having to read about and address allegations I know to be false involving the words ‘rape’ and ‘assault’ has been an absolute nightmare.”
Costner, 70, was sued along with the companies behind his planned, four-film Horizon movie franchise. The first installment, Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1, premiered in June 2024 and pulled in a reported $11 million during its opening weekend, making it a box office disappointment. Horizon 2 was scheduled to be released a few months later, but it was paused after the first film failed to perform and currently has no release date, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
From Rolling Stone US
