Harvey Weinstein CBE (born March 19, 1952) is an American former film producer. He and his brother Bob Weinstein co-founded the entertainment company Miramax, which produced several successful independent films, including Sex, Lies, and Videotape (1989), The Crying Game (1992), Pulp Fiction (1994), Heavenly Creatures (1994), Flirting with Disaster (1996), and Shakespeare in Love (1998).
Weinstein won an Academy Award for producing Shakespeare in Love, and garnered seven Tony Awards for a variety of plays and musicals, including The Producers, Billy Elliot the Musical, and August: Osage County. After leaving Miramax, Weinstein and his brother Bob founded The Weinstein Company, a mini-major film studio. He was co-chairman, alongside Bob, from 2005 to 2017.
Acclaimed playwright Jez Butterworth once punched Harvey Weinstein on set
nme.comHarvey Weinstein.Speaking recently with The Guardian, Butterworth shared details about the time he entered into a disagreement with Weinstein.According to Butterworth, while on the set of the 2001 erotic comedy thriller starring Nicole Kidman, Birthday Girl, Weinstein took issue with a producer, who he wanted to have fired.Weinstein reportedly punched the unnamed producer, prompting Butterworth, who wanted the producer to remain on the film, to retaliate.Butterworth, who is also known for his work on Spectre, Edge Of Tomorrow and Ford V Ferrari, reportedly did some boxing while studying at the University of Cambridge, making him equipped for his response.“If Harvey wants to start throwing punches,” he said, “he should know that I know what to do.”Elsewhere in the interview, Butterworth shared his experience of learning about the pattern of sexual abuse taking place in Hollywood.
When directing Birthday Girl, he said: “I was sent to Hollywood to audition actors in the Peninsula Hotel. And most of those were the actors who later came out and said what they said [about Weinstein].”He continued: “I didn’t know what was going on.
I didn’t know then that he was somebody up to his neck in smashed dreams, in lives he had ruined. I was a man. No one was trying to fuck me or assault me.
But that was my first experience of that world.”Butterworth has previously been vocal in his criticism of Weinstein, who was found guilty of charges relating to sexual assault allegations in both New York and Los Angeles.
Read more on nme.com
