This Is What Happens When You Meet Michael Bay For The First Time

GQ profiles Michael Bay with a sort of oral history, containing personal accounts from the professionals who have worked alongside him. Quotes ranged from, “Michael Bay has a mainline to the testosterone glands of the American male” (Frances McDormand) to, “He can be merciless at times, yet surprisingly sensitive” (Scarlett Johansson).

Yet what interested us the most is a quote from Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, the actress who replaced Megan Fox in Transformers: Dark of the Moon, about the very first time she met the director:

“I first met Michael back in 2009; it was on the set of the Christmas commercial for Victoria’s Secret [which Bay directed]. I remember the first thing Michael said to me- before he even introduced himself or asked me my name-was “Can you walk?” And I looked at him like, “What is this man talking about? Yeah, of course I can walk.” And then he proceeded to tell them to get me in the car, and then I was driven-I mean, honestly, I want to say it was about half a mile out in the desert. I kept thinking, “This is a joke, right?” And the car dumped me in the middle of the desert. All I was wearing was a bra and underwear and a big, billowing, black, floor-length cape and high heels. And he says, “OK, when we shout action, you’re going to walk!” and I assumed I would be doing this in several stages. They yelled action, and the car sped off back to set, and I just was like, “Well, what am I supposed to do?” So I walked all the way back to where the camera was standing, which took me-I would say a good 10, 12 minutes, and it was a proper runway stomp-on salt flats; it was like 100 degrees, felt like fire. I remember walking back and being not impressed by the whole thing. I was pretty pissed off afterwards; I just looked at Michael, and he goes, “I guess you can walk, then.”