There was drama in the audience at a press screening of a new Zach Galifianakis-Owen Wilson comedy when an audience member suddenly punched a film critic sitting next to her.
Stephen Whitty, film critic for the Newark-based Star-Ledger, was watching “Are You Here,” a new film by “Mad Men” creator Matthew Weiner, when “this complete stranger — someone’s guest — sat down next to me,” he said. “Ten or 15 minutes after the movie started, she turned her head and started staring at me. I glanced over — she kept staring.”
The scene, like something from a psychological thriller, continued when “a few minutes later, I realized she was still staring at me,” Whitty added. “She said, a little angrily, something like, ‘What are you even doing here, anyway?’ and punched me in the face.”
A gobsmacked witness at screening room Magno Sound and Video in Midtown told Page Six of the assault, “This girl just started yelling and punched him.”
After getting cold-cocked, a stunned Whitty exclaimed, “What the…” But the man with the alleged attacker, “said by way of explanation, “She just woke up.’ ”
Whitty fled the theater and returned with cops. But when the authorities tried to remove the woman, “she just did a ‘death drop to the floor,’” a spy said, adding that the film, also starring Amy Poehler, continued playing. “They let the film run,” a witness tweeted. “There was a major dramatic moment with a cop in front of the screen.”
The anonymous woman finally was taken out and seen, “sitting on the sidewalk between two cops, drinking water.”
No arrest was made, according to records.
“I didn’t press charges; I’m not suing anyone,” Whitty explained without revealing the woman’s name. “I just wanted someone to take a look at this person and see if she was a danger to herself and others.”
He even joked on Twitter: