Samantha Morton Says Harvey Weinstein Tried to ‘Destroy My Career’ After She Rejected His ‘Misogynistic’ Movie, Called Her ‘Unf—able’

Zack Sharf
·4 min read
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Samantha Morton appeared on a new episode of “The Louis Theroux Podcast” and recalled her tumultuous history with Harvey Weinstein, who is currently imprisoned as a convicted rapist. The “Minority Report” actor said Weinstein blackballed her on his films such as 2005’s “The Brothers Grimm” after she turned down one of his movies years prior. That film was the 2000 romantic comedy “About Adam,” starring Kate Hudson, Stuart Townsend and Frances O’Connor.

According to Morton, Weinstein was impressed with her performance in 1997’s “Under the Skin” and courted her to star in “About Adam.”

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“I said, ‘I don’t like it,’” Morton said about turning down the offer. “‘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.”

“I [then] had a phone call saying, ‘You can’t say no,’” she continued. “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.’”

Morton stood her ground, but she said that cost her future roles in Weinstein-produced projects such as “The Brothers Grimm.” According to the actor, Weinstein said he didn’t want her for the Matt Damon and Heath Ledger-starring fantasy film because she was “unfuckable.” Lena Headey was ultimately cast in the role.

“It made me question why he was anti me?” Morton remembered thinking, before realizing it all tied back to her refusal to star in “About Adam.”

“I forgot about it because it was years earlier,” she added. “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… He had a reason, a deep-seated reason, to just try and destroy my career… He categorically couldn’t, because I kept working, doing independent cinema all over the world.”

Following Morton’s podcast appearance, Weinstein reached out to Variety from behind bars (he is currently serving a 23-year sentence in New York) to issue a statement in response to Morton’s comments, claiming that she is using his name to “advance” her own “agenda.”

“Samantha is a brilliant actor and can do anything well, and that is for certain,” Weinstein tells Variety. “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.”

Morton continued to find work in Hollywood, be it in Steven Spielberg’s “Minority Report” or on AMC’s “The Walking Dead.” She most recently appeared in A24’s Oscar winner “The Whale” — and, fittingly, the #MeToo drama “She Said,” which centers on The New York Times investigation into Weinstein’s sexual assault.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated with a statement from Harvey Weinstein, who contacted Variety on his own accord, via his spokesperson, after this article had been published.

Editor’s note: Variety also reached out to Gilliam and Damon’s representatives after this article had been published for comment on Morton’s attachment to “The Brothers Grimm,” but did not hear back.

Elizabeth Wagmeister contributed to this report.

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