While Harvey Weinstein’s reputation couldn’t get any worse, Goldie Hawn begs to differ.
The Oscar-winning actor told Variety on Wednesday that he was expected to produce and star in an adaptation of the musical “Chicago” in his early 40s. However, Weinstein, the former head of Miramax Films, commissioned a new script, in which his character was 23 years old.
“Harvey basically undermined me and Madonna,” Hawn told Variety. “I really don’t know how she felt about it. You know, it just went with the flow.
Hawn said she had been cast as Velma Kelly in the late 1980s project, while Madonna – who had already shot to global fame with “Like a Virgin” – was set to star alongside her as Roxy Hart. When Weinstein stepped in, Hawn confronted the now-disgraced movie mogul.
“‘Don’t mess with me,'” she told him. “Because I know exactly what you’re doing. We made a deal.”
Hawn, however, stayed out, and the Weinstein rewrite languished for decades. Eventually, when her studio turned the project into an Oscar-winning film in 2002, Catherine Zeta-Jones won Best Supporting Actress for the same role Hawn worked on.
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Although Hawn was interested in the project for more than awards (and had already won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for “Cactus Blossom” in 1970), she asked Weinstein to pay her, which they negotiated for her work – and she won.
“You hire a bully and sometimes you win,” Hawn told Variety of getting Weinstein to pay her back. “I said to him afterwards, ‘You know the best part about paying me? Not the money. You restored my faith in dignity and ethics. I knew little about it.”
While rumors of sexual assault surrounded him for decades, Weinstein was formally convicted in 2020 of criminal sexual intercourse and third-degree rape and sentenced to 23 years in prison. He was convicted in a second trial in February and will essentially spend the rest of his life behind bars.
“He’s finally living out his karma,” Hawn told Variety.
I need help? Visit RAINN’s National Online Sexual Assault Hotline OR National Sexual Violence Resource Center website.
