Selma Blair, Rachel McAdams Share Chilling Sexual Harassment Stories About James Toback

The actresses told Vanity Fair about Toback's demands to meet him in hotel rooms, the flattering comments he made about their acting skills, and the promise of a lead role in his 2001 movie, "Harvard Man."

In 1999, Blair met Toback for what she thought would be a meeting at a restaurant about her potential role in "Harvard Man." The hostess of the restaurant eventually told Blair that Toback wanted to speak with her privately in his room, so she went. According to Blair, he forced her to undress and ridiculed her naked body.

"I said, 'What do I have to do? I cannot touch you. I cannot have sex with you,'" Blair said she told Toback. "He said, 'It's OK, I can come in my pants. I have to rub up against your leg. You have to pinch my nipples. And you have to look into my eyes.' I thought, 'Well, if I can get out of here without being raped...'"

Blair said he walked her to the bed, sat her down and got on his knees.

"He continued to press so hard against my leg," she said. "He was greasy, and I had to look into those big brown eyes. I tried to look away, but he would hold my face. So I was forced to look into his eyes. And I felt disgust and shame, and like nobody would ever think of me as being clean again after being this close to the devil. His energy was so sinister."

Blair said Toback told her he would "kidnap her and throw her in the Hudson River with cement blocks on her feet" if she ever told anyone.

"I was shaking and scared," she said. "I told my boyfriend and made him promise not to tell anyone. My career was just starting, and I was frightened. I thought I was going to be kidnapped if I told anybody."

"I didnt want to speak up because, it sounds crazy but, even until now, I have been scared for my life," she added. "But then these brave women spoke out, and he called them liars and said he didn't recall meeting them ... that [the] behavior alleged was disgusting and it could not be attributed to him. I just felt rage. Pure rage."

Blair cooperated with the initial Los Angeles Times exposé detailing the sexual harassment allegations of 38 women against Toback, but on the condition that she remain anonymous. Since then, that number has risen to more than 200 women, including McAdams.

McAdams was 21 and in the middle of theater school when she met Toback. She said he called her after her audition for "Harvard Man" to discuss getting her career "all the way there."

"Pretty quickly the conversation turned quite sexual," McAdams said. "He said, 'You know, I just have to tell you, I have masturbated countless times today thinking about you since we met at your audition.'"

"He started that kind of manipulative talk of, 'How brave are you? How far you are willing to go as an actress? I want to build some intimacy between us because we have to have a very trusting relationship and this is a very difficult part,'" she continued. "Then he asked me to read passages out loud from different reviews of his films and different critics talking about his work. It was all so confusing. I kept thinking, 'When are we getting to the rehearsal part?' Then he went to the bathroom and left me with some literature to read about him. When he came back he said, 'I just jerked off in the bathroom thinking about you. Will you show me your pubic hair?' I said no."

McAdams said the memory has been "such a source of shame" for her because she "didn't have the wherewithal to get up and leave."

McAdams said the next day, she called her agent at the time, who was "outraged" to hear the news.

"She was very sorry, but she also said, 'I can't believe he did it again. This isn't the first time that this has happened. He did this the last time that he was in town. He did this to one of my other actresses,'" McAdams said. "That is when I got mad because I felt like I was kind of thrown into the lion's den and given no warning that he was a predator. This was something that he was known for doing already. I was so surprised to hear that."

"This has all got to stop," she added. "We need to start acknowledging what an epidemic this is, and what a deep-seated problem this is. You have to get it all out in the open and in the light so that we can really understand how pervasive this is. I think we almost have to exhaust ourselves sharing our experiences before the rebuilding can begin. And hopefully we never slip back into this darkness again."