Mira Sorvino Says She Lost a Role After Oscar-Winning Director Sexually Harassed Her

Mira Sorvino, one of Harvey Weinstein’s many accusers and a leading voice in Hollywood’s #MeToo movement against sexual harassment, claimed in a new interview that she fell victim to the inappropriate behavior of another notable figure in entertainment.

During a recent interview with the Hollywood Foreign Press Association for its HFPA in Conversation podcast, the actress recounted an uncomfortable audition in which a director made a sexually charged comment that left her speechless.

According to Sorvino, the Oscar-winning director — whom she didn’t name but said that he is “known for his social justice profile” — told her during the final round of auditions for one of his films, “You know, as I look at you my mind can’t help traveling from the artistic possibilities to the sexual.”

“I think my mouth just opened, and my silence was deafening,” Sorvino said of her reaction to the director’s comment, adding that other actresses had previously warned her. “You’re going to absolutely have to have sex with all kinds of people to advance your career.”

Sorvino went on to say that she believes she didn’t get the part in the movie because of her reaction to the director’s remark. Elsewhere in the interview, Sorvino claimed that a casting director — who she also did not name — gagged her with a condom during an audition for a horror film when she was just 16 years old.

“I realized that one of my very first auditions when I was 16, I was completely treated inappropriately by the casting director,” she recalled. “In order to scare me for this horror movie scene, he tied me to a chair, he bruised my arm and, I was 16 years old, and then he gagged me, and I was all game because I’m trying to be scared for the scene.”

Sorvino said it wasn’t until after the audition was over that she realized it was a condom that the casting director used to gag her.

“And at the end he takes the gag out of my mouth and he said, ‘Sorry for the prophylactic.’ So he had gagged me with a condom,” she said. “I was too young, thank God, to know what a condom tasted like. It was so inappropriate. And what the heck was a casting director doing with a condom in his pocket?” 

The Hollywood Reporter has reached out to Sorvino’s reps for further comment.

Sorvino was one of dozens of women who accused Weinstein of sexual misconduct after he was exposed in bombshell reports by The New Yorker and The New York Times, published last fall.

In December, the Academy Award winner wrote a guest column for THR, saying that she believed her former romantic relationship with director Quentin Tarantino saved her from further advances from Weinstein. “I was just happy that Quentin was my protector,” she wrote. “I think that’s why Harvey stopped trying with me because he would never mess with the girlfriend of his star director.”

On Monday, Weinstein pleaded not guilty to new charges alleging he performed a forcible sex act on a woman in New York City in 2006. A judge released Weinstein on the same $1 million bail he posted at his first arraignment earlier this summer, involving two other accusers, and was allowed to return to his Westport, Connecticut, home. He is due back in court on Sept. 20.

Listen to Sorvino’s HFPA in Conversation interview below. 

July 13, 11:02 a.m. Updated with Sorvino’s comments about the unnamed casting director.

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