Robert Rodriguez says he cast Rose McGowan in 'Grindhouse' to get back at Harvey Weinstein
- Director Robert Rodriguez told Variety that he cast Rose McGowan in his film "Grindhouse" to get back at Harvey Weinstein for his alleged sexual assault against her.
- Rodriguez described confronting Weinstein with McGowan over the role at a party.
- He said Weinstein subsequently tried to "bury" the film, which had a tepid box office performance for Dimension Films, a branch of The Weinstein Company.
Robert Rodriguez, the director of "Grindhouse" and "Sin City," said he knew about the alleged sexual assault by Harvey Weinstein of Rose McGowan, and decided to cast McGowan in "Grindhouse" to get back at Weinstein for the incident.
In an extended statement for Variety, Rodriguez detailed his meeting McGowan for the first time in 2005, when she told him Weinstein sexually assaulted her in 1997, and said he blacklisted her from working on, or auditioning for, any Weinstein-produced film.
McGowan signed a non-disclosure agreement with Weinstein in 1997 and received a $100,000 settlement from the movie mogul following the alleged assault, according to The New York Times.
Rodriguez and McGowan dated from 2006 to 2009.
When Rodriguez was gearing up to make "Grindhouse," his double-feature film with Quentin Tarantino (released in 2007 by Dimension Films, Bob Weinstein's arm of The Weinstein Company), he said he wrote a "bad a--" lead role for McGowan, in order to "take her off the blacklist" on a film Harvey Weinstein would have to pay for.
Rodriguez then described how he and McGowan confronted Weinstein about the role at a party:
"I called Harvey over to our table, and as soon as he got close enough to see that I was sitting with Rose, his face dropped and went ghostly white. I said, 'Hey Harvey, this is Rose McGowan. I think she's amazing and really talented and I'm going to cast her in my next movie.' Harvey then dribbled all over himself in the most over the top performance I'd ever seen as he gushed, 'Oh she's wonderful, oh she's amazing, oh she's fantastic, oh she's so talented … You two should definitely work together.' And then he skittered off. I knew right then that every word Rose told me was true, you could see it all over his face."
Rodriguez wrote that Weinstein subsequently tried to "bury" the film in its promotional phase. "Grindhouse" did not perform well at the box office.
Rodriguez has since released a number of other films for Dimension Films, including sequels to "Spy Kids" and "Sin City," which were Dimension-produced.
Read his whole statement for Variety.