Quentin Tarantino Wishes He Had Told Harvey Weinstein to Stop: ‘Everybody… Knew About It’
Quentin Tarantino opened up in a new interview about his past relationship with Harvey Weinstein and the sexual assaults committed by the disgraced movie producer.
Weinstein, who’s serving 23 years in New York state prison for rape and sexual assault, produced all of Tarantino’s films up until the charges against him came to light in late 2017.
On the latest episode of Joe Rogan’s podcast, Tarantino reflected on his decades-long personal and professional relationship with Weinstein.
“It’s sad. He wasn’t just this guy who financed my movies. He was kind of like a father figure. I mean, he was kind of a fucked up father figure, but that’s most people’s fucking fathers,” said the acclaimed director.
Tarantino went on to reference and expand on his 2017 interview with The New York Times, in which he said he wished he “had done more” to stop Weinstein’s behavior.
“A lot of people read a lot of what that could possibly mean,” said the Once Upon a Time in Hollywood director. “Well actually what it means is I wish I had talked to the guy. I wish I had sat him down and had the uncomfortable conversation.”
Tarantino continued, “I didn’t know about any rapes or anything like that, but I knew he was… I chalked it up to the boss chasing the secretary around the desk. As if that’s OK, but that’s how I kind of looked at it. He was making unwanted advances. That’s how I looked at it. I wish I had talked to him. I wish I had sat him down and gone, ‘Harvey you can’t do this. You’re gonna fuck up everything.’”
Tarantino further speculated that no one close to Weinstein admonished him over his behavior towards women, but “everybody who was in his orbit knew about it.”
He added, “There’s nobody who said they didn’t know that didn’t know. If you were in his orbit — and that includes all the big actors who he palled around with — they all knew.” Tarantino further acknowledged that Weinstein’s confidants “probably didn’t know anything about rapes, but they had heard things.”
In his 2017 interview with the Times, Tarantino admitted he had heard several stories of Weinstein sexual harassing actresses over the years, including inappropriate advances he made towards Mira Sorvino, who Tarantino had been dating at the time.
“I knew enough to do more than I did,” Tarantino had told the publication. “There was more to it than just the normal rumors, the normal gossip. It wasn’t secondhand. I knew he did a couple of these things.”
Listen to the full interview below.
