Winona Ryder said in a new interview with Esquire that she felt blacklisted by Miramax in the “late ’90s and early 2000s” for “various reasons,” one of which was a meeting with company co-founder Harvey Weinstein that allegedly upset him. Weinstein ran Miramax until 2005. He is currently in prison on sexual assault charges.
“The only time I was supposed to have a meeting with [Harvey Weinstein]“I went to the Miramax office and extended my hand and he shook my hand and I sat on the couch and we had a conversation and then I left,” Ryder said. “And [afterwards] I got yelled at [by an agent]“What the hell did I do?” I said, “What?” I think I offended him by extending my hand?… I think so.”
Ryder had already worked on a Miramax film at that point in her career, 1993's “The House of the Spirits,” and recalled Weinstein knocking on her trailer door during production. He was said to have insisted that she star in a film adaptation of the play “A Little Voice.”
“I was like, ‘Oh my God, I just saw that in London,’” Ryder said. “And I was like, ‘You have to pick that girl. [from the play]“Jane Horrocks. She’s absolutely amazing.” Then he got very strange and left.
“He didn't like me,” Ryder added.
Although Ryder did not experience any sexual misconduct at the hands of Weinstein, she did face sexual harassment as an actress in her 20s and 30s, saying she had “two difficult experiences with two people who were blatantly sexually harassing me.”
“It wasn’t an assault, but it was totally inappropriate,” Ryder said. “It was crazy. I really understand.” [what the victims of Weinstein and others went through]“I was lucky that I was known, so it didn’t happen as often as it would have if I had been a struggling actor. But I remember this feeling in my mind: You’re negotiating, you’re thinking about what would happen if I said something. You’re working on the problem while this person is acting really scary.”
Ryder said she told her Beetlejuice co-star Jenna Ortega about some of these experiences: “And as I was saying that, I was like, 'Jesus Christ, this is really messed up.'”
“If someone was being inappropriate or harassing me while drunk, it was like, ‘Ha ha!’ ‘You’re doing it somehow. Ha ha!’ Inappropriate? I dealt with that. But touching me? It felt too intrusive.”
Visit Esquire's website to read Ryder's full cover story.
