Adam Sandler has been criticized by viewers for repeatedly touching British actress Claire Foy during a recent appearance on the BBC’s Graham Norton Show.
The incident appears to have made Foy visibly uncomfortable.
During the show, Sandler placed his hand on Foy’s knee as he told an anecdote.
Foy brushed his hand away, but Sandler touched her again moments later.
The Crown actress, 33, squirmed with apparent discomfort as Sandler’s hand rested on her leg for two seconds.
British Oscar-winner Emma Thompson, who was also a guest on the show, appeared to glare at Sandler.
Some viewers took to social media to express their discomfort at watching the footage.
One viewer, Gary Bishop, wrote on Twitter: “With all that’s happening did I just see Claire Foy looking a little distressed at Adam Sandler’s hands all over her knees?”
Another viewer, Ange Cuthbert, said: “Felt very uncomfortable watching Adam repeatedly put his unwanted hand on the knee of Claire Foy and the wonderous Emma T.”
Justine Harkness added: “I don’t think Adam Sandler would have done that if he’d been sitting next to a man. That’s why it’s a problem.”
A spokesman for Sandler, a married father-of-two, described his actions as “a friendly gesture”.
Some viewers pointed out that Sandler touched Dustin Hoffman’s knee in a similar way during an interview on Jimmy Fallon’s talk show earlier this month.
The incident involving Sandler and Foy comes at a time when sexual harassment in Hollywood has been under intense scrutiny.
Emma Thompson, who appears alongside Sandler in the 2017 comedy-drama film The Meyerowitz Stories, has been a vocal critic of “endemic” sexual harassment in the industry.
Earlier this month, Thompson said that Harvey Weinstein, the film producer who has been accused of sexual abuse by dozens of women, was “at the top of the ladder of is a system of harassment, and belittling, and bullying, and interference”.
She added the disgraced mogul was “the top of a very particular iceberg” and was just one of many “predators” in Hollywood.
“Do they have to all be as bad as him to make it count? Does it only count if you really have done it to loads and loads and loads of women? Or does it count if you do it to one woman once? I think the latter,” she said.
