Kim Novak, 93, told The Times of London this week that she "would never have approved" of Sydney Sweeney playing her in Scandalous!, the Miramax biopic about Novak's 1950s romance with Sammy Davis Jr. The film, directed by Colman Domingo, is currently shelved.

1. She's Not Me (Kim Novak)

Novak doesn't just dislike the casting. She thinks it will turn her love story into a sex scene.

The casting will turn a love story into a sex scene. That's Novak's argument. She told The Times that Sweeney is "totally wrong to play me" because there's "no way it wouldn't be a sexual relationship because Sydney Sweeney looks sexy all the time." It sounds crude, but the real concern is narrative: she and Davis shared something rooted in mutual outsider status, not attraction, and she's afraid the film will flatten that.

This isn't Hollywood gossip to her — it's a tragedy she lived through. Columbia Pictures head Harry Cohn allegedly hired a mobster to threaten to break Davis's legs and blind him unless he married a Black woman. Davis married singer Loray White nine days later. Novak has described their relationship with visible tenderness for decades, always emphasizing the connection over the physicality. She doesn't trust the casting to honor that.

2. Stop Reducing Sweeney to Her Body (Sydney Sweeney's Defenders)

Sweeney's critics have always reduced her to her body. Now a 93-year-old legend is doing it too.

Sweeney has spent her entire career pushing back against exactly this. She said as much to Vanity Fair in 2024 — that it's disheartening to see women in the industry bash younger talent instead of supporting them. That quote resurfaced immediately after Novak's interview, because it now describes Novak perfectly.

Sweeney connected with the role because it mirrors her own experience. She told PEOPLE she was honored to play Novak specifically because the story is about a woman navigating Hollywood scrutiny and the control of her own image. That's bitterly ironic now — Novak is trying to control the image of the person playing her.

3. Who Cares What You Think, Novak (Hollywood Biopic Tradition)

Living subjects rarely get veto power over casting.

Living subjects almost never get a say in who plays them. Anne Rice publicly ripped Tom Cruise as Lestat before Interview with the Vampire came out. Families objected to everything from The Social Network to Bohemian Rhapsody. Life rights aren't required for public figures, and approval over casting is almost never granted.

Novak's critique is specifically about Sweeney's body, which makes it awkward. This isn't "she can't act" or "she doesn't look like me" — it's "her breasts will sexualize my story." Novak is making the same kind of body-focused judgment that Sweeney has spent years pushing back against. The casting debate has quietly become a debate about whether it's ever OK to judge an actress by her appearance — even when the judge is the woman being portrayed.

Where This Lands

There's something genuinely painful about watching a 93-year-old woman see her worst memory get optioned by Miramax. But Novak's critique boils down to Sweeney's chest, which is exactly the kind of thing Sweeney has been fighting her whole career. And the film is shelved anyway.

Sources