Photo-Illustration: The Cut; Photos: House Oversight Committee, Sony Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection
In July 2014, Ginevra Tamberi was working as an aide to Woody Allen when she received an email from her boss’s friend, the financier Jeffrey Epstein: Would it be possible for him to visit the set of the movie Allen was filming? The project, then untitled, would be the 2015 black comedy Irrational Man, starring Joaquin Phoenix and Emma Stone.
Epstein’s ask wasn’t simple. According to the most recent tranche of emails released by the Department of Justice, he wanted to arrive by helicopter and have lunch with Allen and his wife, Soon-Yi Previn. He wanted to rent a car to shepherd him around Newport, Rhode Island, where the film was shooting. And, as he wrote to Tamberi in an email thread dated July 24 with the subject line “extras,” he wanted background roles for three “assistants,” a term he used frequently for the young women in his social circle as well as his victims.
Over the next few days, Tamberi coordinated with Epstein’s executive assistant, Lesley Groff, to ensure the young women — described by Epstein as “between the ages of 21 and 26” — would appear in the film. An itinerary emailed to Groff dated July 30 instructs the “girls” to report to a production employee at Wakehurst Hall at Salve Regina University, the shooting location for many of the film’s campus scenes, so they could process paperwork and get into hair and makeup. Almost all of Epstein’s assistants’ identities are redacted in the emails, so it’s not clear if they made it into the movie. But the name of Karyna Shuliak, Epstein’s longtime girlfriend, is not redacted. A woman who closely resembles Shuliak appears in the film at the 57-minute, 11-second mark sitting next to Stone in a classroom scene. (Shuliak later bought the film on iTunes, according to a 2016 Apple receipt found in Epstein’s emails.)
It’s not uncommon for friends of cast and crew members to serve as background actors on movie sets. Typically, such extras, while approved by a casting director, are uncredited and paid minimum wage for a day or two of work, as was the case with Epstein’s assistants on Irrational Man, according to a source close to production. (The source did not remember the assistants, nor did they remember Epstein showing up to set, though according to the files made public by the DOJ, Epstein was indeed there that day: “I’m standing here with Joaquin,” he wrote that morning to his friend Eva Dubin.)
The 2014 visit to Newport was not the first time Epstein tried to get his “girls” onto a Woody Allen set. Emails from the latest DOJ document release show that between 2010 and 2017, he attempted to influence or aid Allen’s casting process. “I’m with Woody Allen and [he is] looking for beautiful girls to cast. Any ideas?” he asked one modeling-agency owner, whose identity has been redacted, in a 2012 email. In another exchange with Faith Kates, the co-founder of the modeling agency NextModels, Epstein asks if she has any “aspiring actresses” in her stable, as “woody and i are having dinner on sunday.” (Allen and Kates did not return requests for comment.)
Allen and Epstein’s close friendship is well documented, with the former showing up in the disgraced sex trafficker’s files more than 3,000 times. Emails between the two show that they corresponded up until 2018, long after Epstein’s publicly known 2008 conviction of solicitation of a minor. Epstein also maintained a close relationship with Previn, Allen’s wife, regularly attending dinners at the couple’s home and doing favors for them, including donating $15,000 to an elite K–12 all-girls school on one of their daughter’s behalf and helping another get into Bard College in 2017 by introducing her to the college’s president, Leon Botstein. Emails also show that Epstein pulled strings to get Previn a tour of the White House in 2015. (Previn also did not respond to a request for comment.)
In June 2016, Epstein emailed Previn, asking, “If Woody is filming on the beach, could some of the assistants be extras?” He added, “I would find that amusing, only if not a pain.”
“We are not anywhere close to that,” Previn wrote back. “I will ask him though. He hasn’t even started casting the lead parts.” She then said, “Nice to know that he has extras :-).”
Allen appears to have come through. A few months later, his aide emailed Groff to “help coordinate getting the ladies as extras,” apparently this time on the 2017 movie Wonder Wheel, requesting their shoe sizes and sending them details for a September 28 shoot at Ruby’s Bar and Grill on the Coney Island boardwalk.
The actual extent of Epstein’s influence over Allen’s casting process is not clear. In the emails released by the DOJ, he frequently boasts about his relationship with Allen to curry favor with women or other rich and powerful men in his contact list. But Epstein also regularly encouraged Allen to consider friends for upcoming projects, including the comedian Bobby Slayton, a mutual acquaintance. “Bobby Slayton was here last night . He said your casting director contacted him??,” Epstein wrote in a February 4, 2016, text to Allen.
Allen replied, “Maybe Bobby could do a small bit in the Amazon movie. Discussing that now with casting.” On IMDb, Slayton is credited as “Fishing Buddy” in Wonder Wheel, which was distributed by Amazon Studios. In an email a few weeks later, Epstein wrote to Slayton that he had also landed a role in Allen’s Amazon series, Crisis In Six Scenes, as a result of a dinner party he had attended with Allen at Epstein’s house. “I’m very glad,” Epstein wrote. (Slayton did not respond to a request for comment.)
Epstein used a more assertive tone when pushing to get his assistants on set. On November 1, 2016, possibly after filming for Wonder Wheel had concluded, he asked Previn to connect an “assistant,” an aspiring actress, with Patricia DiCerto, Allen’s long-time casting director. Previn agreed: “Anything for you.” In a follow-up email, DiCerto was connected to the woman, introduced as “the perfect person to ask any burning questions you may have about the industry, auditioning, and more.” (DiCerto did not respond to requests for comment.)
In emails between Epstein and the same young woman, she seemed excited about the prospect of meeting DiCerto, asking Epstein for advice about what questions to ask and whether she should prepare a headshot and reel for their meeting. He answered her questions then added, “Watch some porn, learn some new tricks,” before inviting her to his island later that month.
On November 27, a few weeks after Epstein pushed for the young woman to meet DiCerto, he asked Previn whether “the casting woman” had spoken to his “assistant.” A seemingly annoyed Previn accused the woman of failing to follow up. “No, Woody has not seen the casting woman as he is not casting for another movie at this time. This should have been taken care of a long time ago. He was assured that it was taken care of a long time ago.”
“I just wanted her to be given some guidance,” Epstein responded. “Nothing more.”
The following year, in emails to another woman, he dangled the prospect that he could get her cast in an Allen film. In a July 2017 email, he boasted that he was scheduled to see the director the following weekend and would suggest her for an upcoming project, which appears to have been the 2019 film A Rainy Day in New York. “Woodys casting director patricia will call,” he wrote.
A few weeks later, he updated her on Allen’s decision. “Sorry, you would have had fun,” he wrote. “He decided on Selena Gomez.”