Helena Bonham Carter recalls moment she stood up to Harvey Weinstein
'Standing up to him wasn’t an easy thing to do because I knew I could potentially lose work'
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Your support makes all the difference.Helena Bonham Carter has shared details of her past experience working with Harvey Weinstein, saying she stood up to the disgraced Hollywood producer on multiple occasions.
In an interview with The Guardian, the actor said: "There were times when Harvey asked me to do certain things, and I said no. I knew I was running a thin line. Standing up to him wasn’t an easy thing to do because I knew I could potentially lose work.”
She described an incident on the set of Jean-Pierre Jeunet's The Young and Prodigious TS Spivet, about a 10-year-old prodigy who embarks on a solo cross-country journey.
“Harvey wanted me to tell Jeunet to change it," she said. "There is a scene in which he hitchhikes and Harvey said as soon as that kid gets into a truck everyone will think the truck driver is a child molester and all the kids in America will be freaked out. I said: ‘I don’t think you’re right, and I’m not going to tell Jean-Pierre Jeunet I know better than him.’"
According to Bonham Carter, Weinstein's response was: "'You’ve got to tell that arrogant asshole he’s being a s**t, he doesn’t know the American market like I do.’ I found it revolting.”
She said she believed she could stand up to Weinstein, "because I already had a career. Other people were employing me. I wasn't reliant on him."
The actor said she had not heard of any allegations of sexual abuse previous to The New York Times and the New Yorker reports, which opened the doors to a flood of claims against Weinstein. Since then, more than 70 women have accused the producer of sexual assault, harassment, or misconduct. “I was aware certain actresses had had sex with him, but I thought it was consensual," Bonham Carter said.
"Nobody is wholly bad and nobody is wholly good. He [Weinstein] was very clever," she added. "There are a lot of reasons he was very powerful. He knew how to get you Oscar nominations. Both my nominations are due to him. And he had great taste in films.”
"I found the way he treated certain people chilling – without any kind of respect. There were many times I disagreed with the way he behaved, and I don’t mean sexually."
Bonham Carter said she believes the #MeToo movement has definitely been "a good thing". "Any kind of abuse is not on," she said. "But I think one has to be careful. You have to be absolutely rigorous about what somebody has done to stand up and accuse them. You have to honour #MeToo.”
The Alice in Wonderland star is set to appear in the third season of The Crown, where she will replace Vanessa Kirby as Princess Margaret.
"We're completely terrified," Bonham Carter has said of taking on the role. "I think also because the first two seasons were such a success, we have the onus of inheriting the responsibility of doing justice to all these genuinely famous people, and then on top of it, inheriting them from this previous generation of actors who've done such good jobs."
The Crown is expected to return to Netflix for its third season in 2019.
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