One month after The Salt Path was released in cinemas last summer, an exposé claimed that author Raynor Winn had lied about many aspects of her alleged life story. Now, the film is about to be released in the US – and its lead stars are addressing the scandal for the first time. After remaining silent on the scandal for months, Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs, who played author Raynor Winn and her husband Moth, respectively, are now, bizarrely, expected to do press interviews about the project overseas.
Speaking to The Times in a recent interview, Anderson said the controversy “was really disappointing, a huge letdown”. The actor added: “The story came out the week we were signing US distribution and Sony withdrew. What degree of proof was there?
They had told us that they couldn’t talk about [a previous] legal case because it was ongoing. It was unfortunate.” The Independent has contacted a representative of Sony for comment. In a previous interview while promoting another of her films Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, former X-Files star Anderson emphasised that she’d been surprised by The Salt Path’s initial box office success when The Observer’s investigation broke.
She told Radio Times: "A lot of people were enjoying it, regardless, and it is special in its own right. I hope people are able to experience it as its own entity, separate from what may or may not be true or whatever controversy there is." Meanwhile, Harry Potter and White Lotus actor Isaacs appeared on Kermode on Film podcast, when host Mark Kermode asked him: “You made The Salt Path, which is only now coming out in America?” New subscribers only. £9.99/mo. after free trial. Plan auto-renews until cancelled.
This revenue helps to fund journalism across The Independent. The actor replied: "It's going to be interesting doing publicity for The Salt Path now that there's been... I said, ‘Are you sure you want us to do publicity?’ They went, ‘Absolutely.’” Isaacs said he was fine with the decision as he thinks “it’s a beautiful film” and “that much of it is still completely valid”, but levelled: "Obviously, some of the things have been questioned.
It's going to be an interesting experience." The Salt Path, which was published in 2018 and has sold over two million copies worldwide, details how Raynor Winn and her husband Moth lost their house after a friend invested their money poorly. It charts their fall into homelessness and the long walk that miraculously eased symptoms of Moth’s rare, terminal neurological disease (corticobasal degeneration or CBD). However, the Observer investigation put this whole narrative into question.
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