- Title: 'It's changed everything' - Sigourney Weaver on Weinstein
- Date: 21st February 2020
- Summary: BERLIN, GERMANY (FEBRUARY 21, 2020) (REUTERS) ***WARNING: CONTAINS FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY*** (SOUNDBITE) (English) DIRECTOR PHILIPPE FALARDEAU, SAYING: "But the two actresses were… it was interesting. Was first time where the actresses were not only playing the parts, but they were my go-to girls as consultants in a different way. It doesn't happen like in an intellectual way. But Sigourney Weaver knows that old literary New York. She knew, she met authors of that era. She lives in the same neighbourhood in Upper East Side. So she knew that New York intimately. I'm French-Canadian, I don't I never grew up there. This is alien to me." BERLIN, GERMANY (FEBRUARY 20, 2020) (REUTERS) DIRECTOR PHILIPPE FALARDEAU, ACTRESSES SIGOURNEY WEAVER AND MARGARET QUALLEY ARRIVING FOR NEWS CONFERENCE WEAVER AND QUALLEY PRESS TAKING PHOTOS WEAVER SEATED FALARDEAU, WEAVER, QUALLEY AND AUTHOR, JOANNA RAKOFF SEATED (SOUNDBITE) (English) ACTRESS, SIGOURNEY WEAVER, SAYING: "But obviously, we're always thrown together with fans." (SOUNDBITE) (English) ACTRESS, MARGARET QUALLEY, SAYING: "I know that when I first met Sigourney, I held it together for the first time, like, the whole time we were meeting and the script read-through. And then right before I left was like, 'OK, so but anyway, like Alien and I love you and I'm sorry. And I got myself together. Thanks. I'll get out of your way and like, really sorry. I'll just hug you one more time. OK. Bye.' Yeah. So I relate to the fans." / WEAVER PATTING QUALLEY ACTOR, DOUGLAS BOOTH, SEATED IN AUDIENCE (SOUNDBITE) (English) ACTRESS, SIGOURNEY WEAVER, SAYING: "But I think that what I love about Margaret and the script is just that it is a love letter to the literary world, the old literary world of New York, which still exists in little tiny pockets, but less and less. And this… even the office we worked in, because we met the man who bought the office from this company and he kept everything, he'd kept the file on, you know, every author. And, and it was just thrilling to be around all this stuff. So that really that really nurtured me a lot, too, to think that I was J.D. Salinger's agent and Agatha Christie's and, you know, F. Scott Fitzgerald, that they were right there under my fingertips." CAMERA CREWS (SOUNDBITE) (English) ACTRESS, MARGARET QUALLEY, SAYING: "I actually, well, I went to New York when I was 16 and I had a similar experience of kind of chasing my dreams and moving there from a small town and feeling really inspired by New York City." FALARDEAU SPEAKING FALARDEAU AND WEAVER LEAVING, WEAVER SIGNING AUTOGRAPHS CAMERA / WEAVER
- Embargoed: 6th March 2020 13:56
- Keywords: Berlin film festival Berlinale My Salinger Year Sigourney Weaver Special Gala cinema movies out of competition
- Location: BERLIN, GERMANY
- City: BERLIN, GERMANY
- Country: Germany
- Topics: Arts / Culture / Entertainment,Film
- Reuters ID: LVA007C1K1AOD
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: The cascade of allegations against producer Harvey Weinstein, currently being tried on charges of sexual misconduct, has "changed everything" for women in the film world, actress Sigourney Weaver said on Friday (February 21).
The "Aliens" star is one of two lead actresses in "My Salinger Year", the story of an aspiring young writer mentored by Weaver's experienced literary agent, which premiered out of competition at the Berlin Film Festival on Thursday.
"I certainly respect the women who have gone to court against him, and I can't imagine that," she told Reuters. "I think it's changed everything, frankly. It's been case after case."
The explosive allegations against Weinstein and a host of other senior men in film and other media industries dominated the news throughout much of 2017, leading many to demand a reassessment of the challenges women faced in the workplace.
"My Salinger Year", directed by French-Canadian Philippe Falardeau, could be one of the early fruits of that change, in its exploration of the relationship between and older and a younger woman working at an esteemed New York literary agency that counts J.D. Salinger among its clients. "This mentor-mentee relationship is very common for women," Weaver said. "And it's a story that's not often told on film. You have plenty of coming of age stories about young men, but very rarely do we have this relationship." Filmed in Montreal but set in mid-1990s New York, the film is based on Joanna Rakoff's memoir of the same name, which recounted the year she spent answering fan mail addressed to J.D. Salinger.
Margaret Qualley plays Joanna, who realises over the course of her year under Weaver's stern and New York City's hedonistic mentorship that her loser boyfriend and her work as a literary agent are interfering with her aspiration of becoming a writer. "I so not wanted to project my male perspective and fantasies on to a woman's life," Falardeau said, explaining his decision to crew the film with women, including cinematographer Sara Mishara and editor Mary Finlay.
(Production: Lena Toepler, Oliver Barth, Fanny Brodersen) - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
- Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2020. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
- Usage Terms/Restrictions: None