Casey Wilson’s Blunt Take on Working With Tim Allen
Casey Wilson, who appeared alongside Tim Allen in The Santa Clauses, has called her time on set with the actor her worst professional experience, pointing to his cold and dismissive attitude.
Tim Allen’s reputation among his colleagues has never been spotless, and stories from those who’ve worked with him keep surfacing. While many Aussies remember him as the bloke from Home Improvement or the voice behind Buzz Lightyear, there’s a growing list of co-stars who’ve found him less than charming off camera. For some, his turn as the accidental Santa in the 1994 Christmas flick The Santa Clause is a festive staple, but tales from behind the scenes paint a different picture of the man in the red suit.
Setting aside his well-publicised run-in with the law over a hefty stash of cocaine, Allen’s on-set relationships have often been rocky. Back in the late ‘90s, Home Improvement wrapped up earlier than planned after Patricia Richardson, who played his on-screen wife, took issue with the pay gap between them. Allen was pocketing $2 million per episode, while Richardson was offered half that. Rather than back her up, Allen let her walk, and the show was canned. Then there’s the story from Pamela Anderson, who claimed Allen flashed her during her time on the sitcom, joking that since he’d seen her nude in Playboy, it was only fair she saw him in the buff. Most would call that out of line.
On Set With The Santa Clauses
But these incidents seem almost tame compared to what Casey Wilson had to say about working with Allen on the Disney+ series The Santa Clauses. Wilson, known for her work on Saturday Night Live and Happy Endings, had a small part in the show’s pilot in 2022. Her account of the experience was anything but flattering.
Speaking on her podcast Bitch Sesh (as reported by Variety), Wilson described a scene where she was meant to throw things at Allen as he came out of a fireplace. Between takes, Allen walked over to a producer, just a few steps away, and said loudly enough for Wilson to hear that she needed to stop stepping on his lines. The producer, clearly uncomfortable, relayed the message. Wilson said Allen wouldn’t look at her or speak to her for the rest of the shoot, and the atmosphere on set was tense. She recalled,
“everyone was walking on eggshells”
when Allen was around. A crew member even joked,
“You’re seeing him on a good day.”
Wilson’s Unfiltered Verdict
Wilson didn’t hold back when summing up her time with Allen, saying,
“Tim Allen was such a bitch. It was truly the single worst experience I’ve ever had with a co-star, ever.”
It’s rare for actors to publicly call out their colleagues in such blunt terms, which makes her comments all the more striking.
Allen continued with The Santa Clauses until its cancellation in 2023, before moving on to a new sitcom about cars called Shifting Gears, where he plays a prickly widower. Perhaps he fancied a change of pace, or just wanted to avoid another on-screen partnership that might end in drama.