Harvey Weinstein's British problem

For years, decades even, the sexual predilections of Harvey Weinstein – one of Hollywood’s most influential figures – were the subject of rumour, speculation, and hushed warnings shared among young actresses and female assistants who came into his orbit.

Now Hollywood has finally decided that it needs to talk about Harvey - and it is finding it very hard to stop.

Ever since the news broke on October 5th in the New York Times that Weinstein had made serial financial settlements to women accusing him of sexual harassment, the floodgates have opened. As the stories rushed in, the Weinstein Company board – which includes Harvey’s brother Bob – voted to sack him.

The British fashion designer Georgina Chapman, Weinstein’s wife and mother to two of his children, announced that she was leaving him. Although Weinstein has already taken public refuge in rehab, where celebrities go to mend broken reputations, the scandal keeps swelling around him.

A string of famous actresses, many of whom were formerly photographed with Weinstein at awards events, have revealed a more uncomfortable, clandestine side to their relationship. The story usually begins with a business meeting in a hotel suite with Weinstein, his portly form clad in a bathrobe, expertly and abruptly turning film talk to overt proposals of massage, showering and sex. How it ends can differ. 

The British actress Kate Beckinsale, who was 17 at their first meeting in London’s Savoy Hotel, refused the offer of a drink, telling Weinstein she had school early the next day, and left “uneasy but unscathed”.

The model and actress Cara Delevingne, who is openly bisexual, described an encounter in which Weinstein had seemingly arranged for another woman to be in his hotel room, and encouraged them to kiss: she balked and left.

The television presenter Myleene Klass said that he offered her a “kind of a sex contract” over lunch at Cannes, which made her “disgusted and angry”.

Others, such as the actresses Asia Argento and Rose McGowan, tell more shocking stories of physical coercion and allegations of rape, which Weinstein continues to deny.

The social network that once shielded him so efficiently from the glare of publicity has melted away, as stars and politicians – such as Hillary Clinton and the Obamas - who were his former associates line up to denounce his behaviour in the strongest terms. Once Harvey was too big to criticise; now he’s too big to ignore.

The story has quickly overflowed from the US to reach the UK: Scotland Yard is investigating claims that Weinstein sexually abused a woman in London in the 1980s.

Last week, a British actress called Sophie Dix described an alleged assault by Weinstein at the Savoy Hotel as “the single most damaging thing that has ever happened in my life.”

In 1990 she was a 22-year-old actress who had just been cast in a film with Colin Firth: “I was open and trusting and I had never met a predator; I had never considered a predator.” 

When Weinstein – who she had previously met at industry events – invited her up to his hotel room to watch unedited film footage, she happily agreed – only to be shocked when he started trying to pull her clothes off and pin her down. She struggled free and locked herself in the bathroom - but when she opened the door, she alleges, Weinstein was blocking the doorway, masturbating.

There are recurrent themes to the allegations. In most cases the actresses were very young and acutely aware of Weinstein’s power in the industry. “Harvey knows everyone” cut both ways: it could, perhaps, snuff out a fledgling career.

Will the Weinstein conversation change things for young actresses? Maybe. Yet some are already concerned that the focus on him alone showcases his behaviour as a problem confined to Hollywood and a single, stellar monster.

Emma Thompson last week described him as “the top of a very particular iceberg” in “a system of harassment and belittling and bullying and interference.” She warned that there were many more like him throughout the industry, albeit operating on a less extreme scale, adding bluntly: “I spent my twenties trying to get old men’s tongues out of my mouth.”

While unwanted propositions might not be routine for young actresses in the UK, they can crop up unexpectedly, and are not always confined to big breaks.

Meera Syal, the actress and writer, remembers how in the late 1980s: “A young, up and coming director invited me round for a chat, and then he got a bit touchy feely. I said outright: ‘Let me get this straight – are you saying if I sleep with you you’ll give me the lead in the pantomime?' 

"He said 'Well, yes'. I said 'Well, no, thank you very much.' I never saw him again. I thought: ‘If I have to do this for a part in a panto what the hell would I have to do for a telly role? Is this what it’s going to be like?'.”

Kate Hardie, a British writer-director and actress who has starred in films such as Mona Lisa, The Krays and Croupier, agrees that the story is about much more than Weinstein: “So many actresses have these moments in their career where they are feel very frightened and sexualised.

"I remember years ago having a meeting with Michael Winner where I was sent to his house. I was alone with him in his office and he said ‘Oh, you’re chubbier than your photograph’ and he lifted up my top and measured my stomach with a ruler. I have a radical feminist mother, and as I left the house I thought: ‘a man just measured my stomach with a ruler and I didn’t walk out’.”

A film set can be an intimidating, confusing place for younger actresses, she says: “From when I first started acting in films, on every single job I did in the UK an older man had slept with me – directors, older male actors. It ended once the filming was over. These were not rapes, I was consenting, but I was also really young and didn’t know where work stops and sexuality begins.”

When Hardie did try to assert herself on one film set, she says, aged 17, the atmosphere quickly soured: “I was savvy enough to ask for a no-nudity clause. Even though there wasn’t a nude scene in the script, I already knew it might come up on a whim of the director’s.

The request caused absolute havoc. I was fired from the film – and then brought back again because there was no-one else they wanted as much for the role. I got the no-nudity clause, but the atmosphere on set was horrible, I got humiliated quite a lot.”

She remains grateful to one older, very well-known British actor, she says, who recognised her vulnerability and acted to protect her: “He said he would stay around the set when I was on so I was never on my own, and that’s what he did.”

The world that Hardie and other actresses describe is one defined by a gross power imbalance between men and women: in which statistically most directors and screenwriters are male, nude scenes are written in when they are not necessary to the story, and rapes are often graphically depicted rather than suggested. Young female bodies are discussed and judged, often crudely.

Yet while male actors often sympathise with the unease of young female actors – and on occasion experience harassment themselves – they are often too wary of being labelled difficult or being fired to speak out in support.

It is telling that it is older, established actresses - or those who have left the industry - who now feel most able to speak out about past experiences.

Younger actresses, hoping for their first break, are still navigating difficult waters, and perhaps often judging it best to stay silent.

The Weinstein watershed may change that. Until very recently Harvey Weinstein was still operating with impunity in a culture that indulged and protected him. He may be the biggest industry player to fall from grace on these grounds - but he is unlikely to be the last.