Harvey Weinstein is spending the rest of his life in jail, where he belongs, for decades of sexual crimes against women. Appearing on The Louis Theroux Podcast this week, British actress Samantha Morton revealed that Weinstein tried to ruin her career when she was in her early twenties, simply because she declined a role he offered her. She thought the movie was misogynistic, and when she gave this feedback, along with her pass, Weinstein and his casting directors flatly told her she would never work again:
Samantha Morton, the Oscar-nominee best known for her roles in “Synechdoche, New York” and “Minority Report,” revealed on this week’s episode of “The Louis Theroux Podcast” that disgraced studio head Harvey Weinstein tried to ruin her career for turning down a role.
Morton had already received critical acclaim for her role in “Under the Skin” (1997) opposite actor Stuart Townsend, when Weinstein, who ran Miramax Films with an iron fist at the time, urged her to star opposite Townsend a second time in “About Adam” (2000).
“I said, ‘I don’t like it. I think the film is really misogynistic, and I don’t want to be part of it,’” Morton told Theroux about declining the part. “The casting director came back with, ‘You don’t say no to Harvey.’ Well it’s not up to him. I just don’t want to do this film.”
Morton added she was even “uber polite” and clarified the film was “just not interesting” to her, only for the casting director involved to warn: “You don’t say no to Harvey.” Morton recalled reiterating she wasn’t saying no to Weinstein, but rather to the project.
“I had a phone call saying, ‘You can’t say no,’” said Morton. “The ‘no’ wasn’t being listened to. So they kept coming back with this role, and I was told unequivocally, ‘You’re not going to work again unless you do this role. I’m going to make your life hell.’”
“You will not work again,” the casting director told Morton.
While the film was made without Morton, she was seemingly blackballed from Miramax films to come. Morton told Theroux that Weinstein refused to cast her in “The Brothers Grimm” (2005) opposite Matt Damon and Heath Ledger, and said she was “unf—able.”
Morton started questioning why Weinstein “was anti-me,” only for continuous rejections from his studio—as well as the Weinstein Company, which he founded with his brother Bob in 2005—to remind her of turning down “About Adam.”
“I forgot about it because it was years earlier,” Morton said. “And then all these years later, I realized that [when] I get an offer, get a letter from a director, if Miramax or then the Weinstein Company had anything to do with it, it was just awful for me.”
Morton added that Weinstein had “a deep-seated reason” to “try and destroy” her career, but she was insulated by “independent cinema all over the world” and managed to forge ahead in smaller films—as well as Steven Spielberg’s “Minority Report” with Tom Cruise.
[From HuffPost]
The arc of this story is an all-too-rare triumphant one: to go from being told “you’ll never work again,” to having a rich career in independent cinema, then to being in a film about the downfall of the man who threatened you (she had a pivotal role in She Said last year). And all while he watches from prison. Bravo Samantha. If you read up on her, though, you’ll find that she had to navigate a very tough upbringing, which in a way made her just the kind of scrappy, punky type to talk bluntly to Weinstein, consequences be damned. I don’t know about you, but I needed this story after the pro-predator news out of London and Venice this week. Nevertheless, we persist.
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