Allison Williams refutes nepo baby label - insisting she worked hard for her acting career
Allison Williams explained how she put in the graft before her acting breakthrough despite the nepo baby accusations that have surrounded her.
Allison Williams doesn't accept the nepo baby label - insisting she put in the hard work before making her breakthrough as an actress.
The Girls star - who is the daughter of former NBC news anchor Brian Williams and TV producer Jane Gillan Stoddard - has faced accusations that she is a nepo baby, but explained that she spent plenty of time working behind the scenes on movies and TV shows instead of "being hatched out of an egg" and getting roles.
In conversation with Girls co-star Andrew Rannells for Interview magazine, Allison said: "That is exactly what people picture for nepo babies, and they're not that wrong. But there were some stops along the way.
"Before I started acting professionally, I did several jobs on sets in support positions. One of them was being Tina Fey's second assistant the summer she was shooting 30 Rock.
"I was also a PA, technically an intern, on A Prairie Home Companion, which was Robert Altman's last movie. That was a stacked cast. I learned so much from that job."
The M3GAN star continued: "And then I was the utility stand-in on the pilot of Boardwalk Empire, the summer going into my senior year of college. That was a job that I got from family connections. It's not a level playing field.
"This girl shows up and is hired, not because I was a good height for this show – sometimes I was on apple boxes. (Martin) Scorsese deserved better, but here he was with me.
"But every one of these roles was an opportunity to see the machinations of a set, to understand how the rhythm of the day works. Where there's tension, you can feel it.
"And I found myself, as I was shooting the pilot for Girls, so grateful not to be learning everything at the same time."
Allison finds acting to be a "stressful" career, even though she has the "safety netting" that most other performers do not, thanks to her parents' background.
The 37-year-old star said: "It's stressful. One of the things that is true about nepo babies, certainly for me, is that there was a floor through which I was not going to fall.
"There was safety netting, and that fundamentally changes your risk calculation.
"But a lot of people, when they're deciding to become actors, have to really fortify themselves against the fight that's coming, the years and years of rejection, trying to figure out how to pay the bills. I certainly got luckier than most."
