No one wants to be described as “unf*ckable”—unless the person who’s thinking about it is ultra-slimeball Harvey Weinstein. Yet that’s the situation Minnie Driver found herself in back in the mid-1990s, when she auditioned for the role of Skylar, a soon-to-be Harvard grad getting ready to head off to medical school at Stanford, and the object of Matt Damon’s desire (both onscreen and off) in 1997’s Good Will Hunting.
In a recent interview with The Telegraph, which Variety also reported on, Driver recalled how she almost didn’t even get the part because of a note the disgraced Miramax head—who Damon and Ben Affleck have accused of attempting to sabotage the movie—sent along to the casting department, in which he railed against her casting because “nobody would want to f*ck her.” As Driver told The Telegraph:
“I remember feeling so devastated until I realized, ‘Hold on, just consider the source for a minute. That is an unutterable pig—why on earth are you worried about this f*ck saying that you are not sexy?’ But there are ramifications of that: that maybe I am not going to be hired because people don’t think I have the sexual quality that is required.”
Fortunately, cooler—and less perverse—heads prevailed, and cast Driver in the role, which earned her a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination.
Looking back now, Driver realizes how lucky she actually was. “How awful to think that I was one of the lucky ones [who escaped him] because he didn’t think I was f*ckable,” Driver said. “And how amazing and wonderful that it has turned around and young men and women in my industry are not going to experience that.”
Driver is currently promoting her new memoir, Managing Expectations. Weinstein, meanwhile, is serving out a 23-year prison sentence, where he was recently reprimanded for attempting to smuggle in a box of Milk Duds.
UPDATE: A rep for Harvey Weinstein reached out with the following comment:
Harvey believes that Minnie Driver is an excellent actor, but it is true he had championed Ashley Judd for the role. He admits when he is wrong, and Minnie Driver was fantastic. He claims to have never said anything regrettable about Ms. Driver’s appearance, and in fact, had hired her for several films. He wishes her luck and success on her memoir.
(Via Variety)
