Richard Dreyfuss has come under attack for his performance in “The Shark Is Broken,” a Broadway show about the making of Steven Spielberg’s “Jaws.”
Dreyfuss, who played marine biologist Matt Hooper in the 1975 thriller, said in a Thursday Vanity Fair story that he attended the comedy “to see if it would really hurt” — before confirming just that.
The Oscar winner complained that “The Shark Is Broken” depicted a feud between him and fellow actor Robert Shaw, who played shark hunter Quint in the film. Dreyfuss said their real-life friendship never hit rough water, adding that they only gave each other lighthearted swipes “to make the hours go by better and faster.”
“If you had just seen us on set, you might think there was something going on – a feud – but that was never real,” Dreyfuss said, suggesting that Spielberg and his co-screenwriter Carl Gottlieb spread rumors about a… had conflict.
Dreyfuss was also not pleased that the play portrayed him as a “fool.”
“They didn’t do that to Roy, and they didn’t do that to Robert. And that hurt because it wasn’t true,” Dreyfuss said, referring to Roy Scheider, another “Jaws” star.
“It was pretty terrible,” Dreyfuss said of seeing the play, adding that he was not contacted for his perspective while writing “The Shark Is Broken.”
“They just decided to make my character a big idiot,” he said.
Dreyfuss’ comments came after the actor stopped by the play’s performance earlier this month, People magazine reported.
“The Shark Is Broken,” which opened on Broadway in August, is scheduled to close next month at New York’s John Golden Theater.
HuffPost reached out to representatives for Spielberg, Gottlieb and “The Shark Is Broken” but did not receive an immediate response.