Mira Sorvino recently said that her Hollywood career could have been much bigger if Harvey Weinstein hadn’t blacklisted her.
Sorvino had been a rising star in the late 1990s, winning a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for 1995’s Mighty Aphrodite and earning a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for Norma Jean & Marilyn in 1996.
Sorvino appeared on the March 18 episode of Sophia Bush’s Work in Progress podcast and reflected on the whole ordeal.
“I was blacklisted for 20 years. I didn’t do a studio movie for 20 years,” shared Sorvino.
Sorvino had roles in Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion and Mimic following her Oscar win, but she told Bush she paid a price for saying no to Weinstein’s advances.
“I actually turned Harvey down three times and when I’d spoken to Ronan Farrow [for a New Yorker article in 2017], I’d forgotten about the third time. It only came to mind later. It was right after the third time that [Harvey] put the kibosh on my career and blacklisted me for 20 years,” clarified Sorvino.
Mira Sorvino shared details of Harvey Weinstein bypassing her doorman to arrive at her apartment:
As per a report shared by Us Weekly, over 80 women accused Harvey Weinstein of sexual misconduct in 2017, and Mira Sorvino was among them. She told her story to Ronan Farrow in The New Yorker.
In September 1995, Sorvino had to share a hotel room with Weinstein at the Toronto International Film Festival, where she was promoting Mighty Aphrodite, which Weinstein produced.
“He started massaging my shoulders, which made me very uncomfortable, and then tried to get more physical, sort of chasing me around,” Mira Sorvino recalled.
As per The New Yorker report, Sorvino told him that dating married men went against her religion, and Weinstein was married to Eve Chilton at the time, who was a former assistant. Sorvino left the room after that.
Weinstein called her after midnight, a few weeks later, in New York City, and said he had new marketing ideas for the film and wanted to meet. Sorvino suggested an all-night diner, but Weinstein said he was coming to her apartment and hung up.
“I freaked out,” Sorvino told Ronan Farrow.
She called a friend, asking him to come over and pose as her boyfriend, but Weinstein arrived before the friend did.
“Harvey had managed to bypass my doorman. I opened the door terrified, brandishing my twenty-pound Chihuahua mix in front of me, as though that would do any good,” she said.
Sorvino told Weinstein her boyfriend was on his way, and Weinstein left.
Mira Sorvino said she felt afraid and intimidated, and she told a female employee at Miramax about the harassment. The woman reacted with shock and horror. Sorvino appeared in a few more Weinstein films after that, but she believed rejecting him and reporting the harassment hurt her career.
“There may have been other factors, but I definitely felt iced out and that my rejection of Harvey had something to do with it,” she said.
Mira Sorvino offered support for Jeffrey Epstein victims after the release of Epstein Files:
The Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson backed up Sorvino’s claims when he spoke to Stuff.co.nz in December 2017. Jackson said Miramax executives warned him that Mira Sorvino and Ashley Judd were nightmares to work with and he should stay away from them at all costs. Judd had also accused Weinstein of misconduct. Weinstein denied that he blacklisted Sorvino and Judd.
During their interview, Sorvino told Sophia Bush that she only got roles in two big-budget Hollywood movies after the #MeToo movement started.
“I still worked … I did indies and I did television. I could have had a bigger career on television probably, but I have four kids and I really wanted to be present there for them,” she said.
Mira Sorvino also spoke about the victims of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein after the Epstein Files were released.
“There’s a second wave of that sorrow and broken-heartedness right now because of the Epstein Files. And I think we all feel such sorrow for all the victims, living and dead, of this horrendous, horrendous culture of abuse and absolute lack of morality and lawlessness and disgusting and predatory [behavior],” the actress said.
Edited by Nimisha