Hollywood actress Mira Sorvino, one of the pioneers of the #MeToo movement has revealed a harrowing experience with a Hollywood director whom she says gagged her with a condom when she was just 16.
The actress had earlier claimed that she was blacklisted by Harvey Weinstein when she refused his sexual advances and she, therefore, found it difficult to find jobs.
Speaking to Hollywood Foreign Press Association’s “HFPA In Conversation” podcast, she recalled an experience with a director whom she called “A big director who has gotten Oscars and is known for his social justice profile.”
She claimed that she was auditioning for a horror movie and was just 16 at the time, and she said; “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.
“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,” Mira Sorvino said, adding, “It was so inappropriate, and what the heck was a casting director doing with a condom in his pocket in an audition?”
She also talked about the pressure she faced to sleep with different people in order to advance in her career, narrating how she was told by a friend; “You’re absolutely going to have to have sex with all kinds of people to advance your career,” and she said she responded saying she refused to do that.
“I always refused all of those things, and lost out on certain acting opportunities in big movies because of it.” she said on the podcast.
She also added that in her story, she knows she missed out on the part after the director told her, ‘You know, as I look at you my mind can’t help but traveling from the artistic possibilities to the sexual.’”
Mira Sorvino said of her refusal to engage sexually with the man, “I know for a fact that’s why I didn’t get that part.” she said.