- 'M3GAN' star and executive producer Allison Williams is unbothered by the 'nepo-baby' conversation.
- In a new interview, Williams said she had great opportunities from her father's connections.
The recent stir surrounding Hollywood's so-called "nepo-babies" — the sons and daughters of notable stars who themselves have entered the entertainment industry — has yielded outright defensiveness from some and denial from others.
In a new interview with New York Mag, Allison Williams, daughter of former NBC anchor Brian Williams, says acknowledging her privilege is just fine with her. She doesn't think the nepo-baby conversation is coming from a bad place either — she said, "All that people are looking for is an acknowledgement that it's not a level playing field."
Perhaps best known for her character Marnie in the HBO series "Girls," and her turn as sadistic girlfriend Rose in Jordan Peele's "Get Out," Williams is slowly but surely making a name for herself. She was cast in "Girls" by Judd Apatow in 2012 after posting a YouTube video of herself singing. At the time she was a recent Yale graduate, just starting out in her pursuit of an acting career.
Now, she's promoting projected-box-office hit "M3GAN," a Blumhouse thriller she stars in and executive produced. She said the road to getting here was certainly paved with privileges that others trying to make it in Hollywood don't have: "It's just unfair. Period, end of the story, and no one's really working that hard to make it fair."
Williams also said she had several opportunities in the entertainment industry on account of her father's connections, one of which was working for Tina Fey's assistant. She doesn't see a problem with acknowledging this — in fact, she feels she has to: "To not acknowledge that me getting started as an actress versus someone with zero connections isn't the same — it's ludicrous. It doesn't take anything away from the work that I've done. It just means that it's not as fun to root for me."
Other more impassioned responses to the conversation include Lottie Moss, Kate Moss's half-sister (from her now-deleted Twitter account), who said "I'm so sick of people blaming nepotism for why they aren't rich and famous or successful," and Lily Allen, daughter of Keith Allen, who tweeted, "I just really think that we can't get to a real solution [to nepotism] without identifying the real problem, as fun as it is to laugh at the kids of famous people."
Williams told Wired in a December interview that acknowledging the advantages of being a nepo-baby comes down to trusting her skills. When you do that, she said, "It doesn't feel like a loss to admit it."
If you work in Hollywood and would like to share your story, email Eboni Boykin-Patterson at eboykinpatterson@insider.com.