Actor Amanda Seyfried said Hollywood is a “safer” place since the downfall of Harvey Weinstein, while cringing over the influence the movie mogul used to wield.
In a roving conversation for Variety’s “Actors on Actors,” Seyfried and two-time co-star Adam Brody reflected on how filmmakers would court Weinstein’s attention for indie projects – including their own “Lovelace,” a 2013 Sundance Film Festival selection that Weinstein ended up acquiring for distribution.
Over a decade ago in Park City, Utah, Seyfried recalled seeing Weinstein “in a car. Slow motion, he’s like rolling down his window and I’m like, ‘Are you going to come to “Lovelace” tomorrow?’” Weinstein told Seyfried he was meant to fly home during her screening but wound up delaying his trip, she told Brody. The “Mamma Mia” and “Long Bright River” star said she and her agent celebrated in that moment. “Lovelace” followed mainstream adult film star Linda Lovelace and her infamous 1972 movie “Deep Throat.” Brody played her X-rated scene partner.
After the premiere screening in Sundance, Seyfried said Weinstein approached her and said he’d bought the project in the room for $3 million.
“I gave him the biggest hug… And it was actually his brother [Bob Weinstein]’s company called Radius, who just fucking trashed it and threw it away and didn’t do anything with it and that’s fine,” Seyfried said, also using the word “dictator” to describe the studio head. “The whole room was buzzing [because Harvey bought it]. He was like the big papa of the room … But it’s just the way it was — we all needed him to want our project if it was an indie, because that meant it was going to go somewhere.”
Brody remembered Weinstein as “setting a tone” of fear, before deadpanning: “What is he doing [now]?”
Weinstein is currently sitting trial for sex crimes in New York. As for “Lovelace,” Seyfried wasn’t kidding. The project went on to gross only $1.5 million at the worldwide box office on a reported $10 million budget.
Seyfried, currently an Emmy contender for her Peacock cop drama “Long Bright River,” is grateful that Weinstein’s reign of terror has ended.
“Hollywood’s a safer place,” she said. “People were scared of him. And when people are scared of someone, the right things don’t happen.”
