Goldie Hawn’s Inspiring Confrontation With Harvey Weinstein
After Harvey Weinstein ruined their “deal,” Goldie Hawn says she approached him.
Weinstein’s Miramax was going to make a movie version of the hit Broadway musical Chicago in the late 1980s.
Madonna was cast as Roxie Hart, and Hawn was scheduled to play Velma Kelly.
However, Weinstein commissioned a different script that had Velma be 23 years old while the film was in production. Hawn was an elder man by two decades.
“Harvey basically undermined me and Madonna,” Hawn told Variety in a new interview. “I said, ‘Don’t f*** with me. Because I know just what you’re doing. We made a deal.”
After the project’s initial success, Weinstein reworked it with Renée Zellweger in the major role of Roxie and Catherine Zeta-Jones in the role of Velma.
The next year, the picture that premiered in 2002 took home the Academy Award for Best Picture.
Nonetheless, Hawn was pleasantly surprised when the disgraced media magnate paid her the agreed-upon sum for her job.
“You stand up to a bully, and sometimes you win,” she recalled. “I said to him afterwards, ‘You know what the best part of you paying me is? Not the money. You restored my faith in dignity and ethics.’ Little did I know…
“He’s finally living his karma,” she continued.
In Los Angeles and New York, Weinstein was found guilty of sexual assault and is presently serving a lengthy jail sentence.
From behind bars, he sent a statement to the media outlet, saying, “Acting roles were always chosen based on what was best for the project, artistically and financially.
“We felt we did the best we could on Chicago and I’m proud of it, and I am so elated that Goldie’s experience was a positive one, and that she has the fortitude to say that in this environment. I would simply say, ‘thank you.’”
