British actor Joseph Fiennes has revealed how he stood up to Harvey Weinstein in the 1990s and saw his career affected as a result.
Fiennes described to the UK’s Guardian newspaper of a meeting he had with the disgraced film producer in 1998, soon after he had starred in two Oscar-nominated films, Shakespeare in Love and Elizabeth.
The actor told The Guardian he was summoned to a meeting with Weinstein in a hotel room, where he was offered a five-picture deal with Weinstein’s company Miramax. According to Fiennes, Weinstein was in bullying mode, making it clear he would be in charge. And he also made it clear, that if Fiennes rejected the offer, things would turn bad for his career.
“It was a bullying tactic that didn’t sit well,” Fiennes remembered. “The way he explained it was a shock to me. But I suddenly sat in the room very present, and happy and strong in myself to say, you know what, I’m not beholden to that. I’m stepping away.
“He made it clear that he won’t support me. He’ll make a very strong movement not to support me. I was out of the family. But I was very happy not to be in the family.”
Fiennes has most recently starred on TV in four seasons of The Handmaid’s Tale as patriarch Fred Waterford, a role for which he has been Emmy-nominated. Weinstein was found guilty of five felonies in 2020, and sentenced to 23 years in jail.