Winona Ryder On Harvey Weinstein And Hollywood Blacklisting: 'He Did Not Like Me'
Winona Ryder is sharing some of the most intimate details of her personal life and career.
The “Beetlejuice” star sat down for an interview with Esquire this week and said that, while she survived the reign of former Miramax boss Harvey Weinstein without being sexually assaulted, the studio “blacklisted” her for denying his advances.
Recalling a meeting with Weinstein, she told Esquire, “I went to the Miramax office and I extended my hand and he shook my hand and I sat on the couch and we had a conversation and I left. And [afterwards] I got like screamed at [by an agent].”
Ryder suggested Weinstein was expecting something more, noting that he’d barged into her trailer during the production of “The House of the Spirits” (1993) and urged her to star in his adaptation of the play “Little Voice.”
When she suggested he cast Jane Horrocks instead, as the “amazing” actor had starred in the role onstage in London, “he got very weird and he left.”
“I think I knew a little bit too much,” Ryder told the outlet. “He did not like me.”
Ryder was only 16 years old when her performance in “Beetlejuice” (1988) made her a star, and while she nabbed two Oscar nods for “The Age of Innocence” (1994) and “Little Women” (1995), her disillusionment with Hollywood only grew.
The actor told Esquire she had “a couple of difficult experiences” in her 20s with people “who were just blatantly sexually harassing” her, and then “again in my thirties,” which has allowed her to relate to Weinstein’s victims.
“I was lucky because I was known, so it didn’t happen as much as maybe it would have if I had been a struggling actor,” Ryder told Esquire. “But I remember this feeling in your mind: you’re negotiating, you’re thinking about what’s going to happen