In a new interview, Angelina Jolie further opened up about her experience with convicted rapist Harvey Weinstein, sharing that she turned down a role in Martin Scorsese’s The Aviator to avoid working with him.
“If you get yourself out of the room, you think he attempted but didn’t, right?” the actress told The Guardian of his unwanted advances while shooting the Weinstein-produced “Playing by Heart” in 1998 at age 21. “The truth is that the attempt and the experience of the attempt is an assault.”
Jolie has spoken on her experience with Weinstein before as a “bad experience,” but now labels it an alleged assault. She said that it was difficult for her when her former husband, Brad Pitt, continued to work with him.
“It was beyond a pass, it was something I had to escape. I stayed away and warned people about him. I remember telling Jonny (Lee Miller), my first husband, who was great about it, to spread the word to other guys — don’t let girls go alone with him,” she said in the interview. “I was asked to do ‘The Aviator,’ but I said no because he was involved. I never associated or worked with him again. It was hard for me when Brad did.”
The article points out that Tarantino’s 2009 film Inglourious Basterds, which starred Pitt, was distributed and co-financed by the Weinstein Company. Additionally, Jolie alleged in the interview that against her wishes, Pitt approached Weinstein to produce his 2012 film “Killing Them Softly.” The Weinstein Company ended up distributing the film, and Jolie avoided attending promotional events for it.
“We fought about it. Of course it hurt,” Jolie said.
In 2019, Pitt made headlines for an interview with CNN in which he disavowed Weinstein and revealed that he had confronted him in 1995 after his then-girlfriend Gwyneth Paltrow said the disgraced producer had sexually harassed her.
Pitt is also now producing a film on the New York Times’ investigation of Weinstein, She Said, through his Plan B Entertainment banner.
Jolie and Pitt’s divorce was finalized in 2019, although a custody battle over their six children is ongoing. On Wednesday, Pitt’s attorneys filed a petition with the California Supreme Court for a review of the custody case after its judge was disqualified.
