Samantha Morton has claimed that she was blackballed by Harvey Weinstein after rejecting his "misogynistic" film.
During an interview on The Louis Theroux Podcast, the English actress recalled her turbulent history with the disgraced film producer, who is currently serving time behind bars after being convicted of sexual assault and rape, among other charges.
Morton, 46, claimed that she had been blackballed by the former Hollywood top dog after turning down his 2000 romantic comedy, About Adam, starring Kate Hudson and Stuart Townsend.
The actress told the podcast host that Weinstein had been impressed with her performance in the 1997 film Under the Skin and as a result, invited her to star in his then-upcoming film.
"I said, 'I don't like it,'" the star revealed about rejecting the role. "'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.' 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 Minority Report star noted that turning down the role had cost her future jobs on Weinstein-produced projects. She added that Weinstein had not wanted her in The Brothers Grimm, starring Heath Ledger and Matt Damon, as he had deemed her "unf**kable". Lena Headey was ultimately cast in the role.
"It made me question why he was anti-me?" Morton recalled, before realising that it was because she refused the role in About Adam.
"I forgot about it because it was years earlier," she noted. "And then all these years later, I realised 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."
Morton recently appeared in She Said, the 2022 biographical drama based on the investigation into claims against Weinstein.
