Former Miramax boss Harvey Weinstein is currently serving 39 years behind bars after being convicted of multiple counts of rape, but the disgraced movie mogul's past behaviour is still making headlines.
During an interview for a new episode of The Louis Theroux Podcast, Samantha Morton (Minority Report, The Walking Dead, The Whale) recalled her tumultuous history with Weinstein, who was so impressed with her performance in 1997’s Under the Skin (not to be confused with the more recent Scarlett Johansson sci-fi drama), that he offered her one of the lead roles in 2000's romantic comedy, About Adam.
After reading the script, Morton declined the part.
“I said, ‘I don’t like it. I think the film is really misogynistic and I don’t want to be part of it.’ The casting director came back with, ‘You don’t say no to Harvey.’ Well it’s not to him. I just don’t want to do this film… and I had just worked with Stuart Townsend on Under the Skin. It was just not interesting to me. I was uber-polite.”
Even so, Weinstein was not pleased, and vowed to "ruin" Morton's career. According to the actress, her "defiance" cost her the female lead role in Matt Damon and Heath Ledger-starring fantasy The Brothers Grimm. The part went to Lena Headey after Weinstein reportedly dubbed Morton "unf*ckable."
Weinstein actually reached out to Variety from his cell via a representative to refute Morton's account of what happened.
“Samantha is a brilliant actor and can do anything well, and that is for certain. What you need to know is that we picked Lena Headey for ‘Brothers Grimm’ simply because we believed her to be the best for that particular role — not for anything other than that. The comment Ms. Morton claims I said was said by one of her own team members and not me. This is an old story and, once again, someone is using my situation to make headlines for a project they want to promote. And kudos to Ms. Morton — this is exactly what happened. It didn’t happen that way. She is a great actor, and she didn’t get picked because we thought someone was a better fit for the part. That is how producing a great film works. People should just stop using my name to advance their own agendas at this point — it’s too easy to say it and for it to go viral, but it doesn’t make it fact.”
We're not sure exactly what Morton would gain from making this up, but nor can we see why Weinstein would bother denying it after all the heinous stuff he's already serving time for.
Whatever way it went down, Morton is still enjoying a very successful career.