Mira Sorvino, Oscar-winning actress and champion of the Time's Up initiative, alleged on the HFPA in Conversation podcast that an unnamed casting director gagged her with a condom – when she was just 16.
"In looking back over my career, I realized one of my very first auditions — when I was 16 — I was completely treated inappropriately by the casting director," Sorvino recounted. "In order to scare me for this horror movie scene, he tied me to this chair, he bruised my arm — I was 16 years old — and then he gagged me."
Sorvino said she complied because she was trying to get the job. After he gagged her, though, the casting director revealed that he'd used a "prophylactic" to gag her.
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"It was so inappropriate," Sorvino said, "and what the heck was a casting director doing with a condom in his pocket at an audition?"
Sorvino was among the first women to come forward with accusations against film producer Harvey Weinstein. Weinstein, she told the New Yorker, had made undue advances on her in a hotel room in 1995. Peter Jackson later said that Weinstein made efforts to derail Sorvino's career. This smear campaign cost Sorvino a role in the Lord of the Rings franchise as well as a part in Bad Santa.
Now, as one of the most high-profile and vocal advocates of Time's Up, Sorvino's career is revving up. She appeared at the 2018 Oscars alongside fellow Weinstein accuser Ashley Judd, and has a number of projects brewing. She also appeared in the June Audience Network series Condor.
Refinery29 has reached out to representation for Sorvino for further comment.
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