The Lost Careers of Dif­fi­cult Women

“If a man says a woman is crazy or dif­fi­cult, ask him, ​‘What bad thing did you do to her?’ That’s a code word. He is try­ing to dis­cred­it her reputation.”

These are the words of actress and activist Natal­ie Port­man, spo­ken in a speech at Variety’s 2018 Pow­er of Women event. Met with rap­tur­ous applause as her sen­ti­ments rever­ber­at­ed around a room filled with peers, she then laid out a series of ways to improve the Amer­i­can film­mak­ing indus­try in the wake of the explo­sive alle­ga­tions lev­elled against pro­duc­er Har­vey Weinstein.

Show busi­ness oper­ates on per­cep­tion. Gos­sip and tit­tle-tat­tle is part of its ecosys­tem. To be brand­ed with a loaded moniker such as ​“dif­fi­cult” can be an effec­tive silenc­ing method. And if we’ve learned one thing from Hol­ly­wood movies, it’s that mon­ey and pow­er are intrin­si­cal­ly linked. If you take away someone’s source of income by unfair­ly tar­nish­ing their name, they won’t be able to put up much of a legal fight. Strin­gent non-dis­clo­sure agree­ments have been employed to pre­vent women from shar­ing their sto­ries, where­as lies that inflict dam­age and hir­ing poten­tial are hard­er to disprove.

The New York Times and The New York­er broke details of the Wein­stein sto­ry seal in Octo­ber 2017, and since then more than 80 claims of sex­u­al mis­con­duct have been lev­elled at the mogul (who, at time of writ­ing, has been con­vict­ed of two charges and awaits sen­tenc­ing from prison). For years, jour­nal­ists at sev­er­al pub­li­ca­tions (includ­ing The Hol­ly­wood Reporter, New York Mag­a­zine and The New York­er) had been try­ing to break this sto­ry wide open, but noth­ing would stick.

The mega pro­duc­er was the ulti­mate untouch­able fig­ure, pro­tect­ed by pow­er, fear and non-dis­clo­sure agree­ments – a ver­i­ta­ble ​‘white whale’, which is why Jodi Kan­tor, Megan Twohey and Ronan Farrow’s Pulitzer Prize-win­ning inves­tiga­tive report­ing sent shock­waves through­out the indus­try and altered the fab­ric of Hollywood.

Not only did they secure mul­ti­ple sources will­ing to go on the record about Wein­stein, they opened the flood­gates regard­ing oth­er claims of mis­con­duct by men in posi­tions of pow­er. In the weeks and months that fol­lowed, oth­er reporters and pub­li­ca­tions broke sto­ries about abu­sive fig­ures in the enter­tain­ment indus­try. A reck­on­ing had come to Tinseltown.

In the after­math, direc­tor Brett Ratner’s mul­ti­mil­lion-dol­lar direc­tor deal was not renewed by Warn­er Bros after accu­sa­tions of sex­u­al harass­ment came to light, and Pixar co-founder John Las­seter stepped down from his chief cre­ative offi­cer posi­tion in 2018 after reports of inap­pro­pri­ate behav­iour. Tele­vi­sion wasn’t immune to the wave: the chair­man and CEO of CBS Cor­po­ra­tion, Leslie Moonves, stepped down amid mul­ti­ple alle­ga­tions of sex­u­al harass­ment. In each cor­ner of the indus­try, pow­er­ful fig­ures who had gone unchecked for years were now being held accountable.

Those accused were more often than not in a posi­tion to threat­en their vic­tims’ careers, leav­ing many vic­tims iso­lat­ed and with silence their only viable option. The sheer vol­ume of peo­ple who came for­ward after the ini­tial arti­cles were pub­lished revealed this was far from the case. The Time’s Up and #MeToo cam­paigns have shown that there is strength in num­bers. But, the fight for jus­tice is an ongo­ing process, and sto­ries of mis­con­duct con­tin­ue to break more than two years after the ini­tial flurry.

The accounts of the women who have come out against Wein­stein share not only sim­i­lar­i­ties in the meth­ods of harass­ment, but also the sys­tem­at­ic man­ner in which their work eth­ic was attacked in the after­math. Rosan­na Arquette, Ash­ley Judd, Mira Sorvi­no, Annabel­la Scior­ra, Rose McGowan, and Daryl Han­nah all expe­ri­enced the ebbs and flows of any pro­fes­sion­al artis­tic career, but each can pin­point the moment of a dras­tic down­turn in offers as a form of per­ceived ret­ri­bu­tion from the producer.

“The idea that there was this malev­o­lent hand that actu­al­ly had changed the course of my pro­fes­sion­al life was dev­as­tat­ing to me,” Sorvi­no told The LA Times a year after the Wein­stein sto­ry broke. Fol­low­ing her 1996 Oscar win for Mighty Aphrodite (the rare com­e­dy per­for­mance to get hon­oured), Sorvi­no appeared to fall foul of the dread­ed ​“Oscar Curse”, where an actor expe­ri­ences career mis­for­tune in the years fol­low­ing their vic­to­ry. This rea­son­ing is indica­tive of how easy it is to explain why some­one is no longer con­sid­ered buzzworthy.

It isn’t a con­spir­a­cy or an insid­i­ous case of black­list­ing, rather it can be chalked up to age­ing out of roles/​being difficult/​or some­thing as vague as a curse (delete where applic­a­ble). Regard­less of how many awards an actress has on her mantle­piece, or how icon­ic a pre­vi­ous role has been, this form of plau­si­ble deni­a­bil­i­ty is an effec­tive method for per­pet­u­at­ing a nar­ra­tive that pro­tects the abuser.

Sorvi­no seem­ing­ly had the world at her feet after the Acad­e­my tri­umph, but beyond her turn in beloved cult com­e­dy Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion, and the lead in sci-fi hor­ror Mim­ic, her movie pro­file fad­ed and the stu­dio roles dried up. To be deemed dif­fi­cult is a short­cut to Hol­ly­wood pur­ga­to­ry. And Sorvi­no is not alone.

“From 1992, I didn’t work again until 1995. I just kept get­ting this push­back of, ​‘We heard you were dif­fi­cult; we heard this or that.’ I think that that was the Har­vey machine,” Annabel­la Scior­ra told The New York­er in 2017. It is impos­si­ble to know what work she would have got­ten over this three-year peri­od if the alleged ​“dif­fi­cult” tag had not been added to her unof­fi­cial resumé (not to men­tion the psy­cho­log­i­cal trau­ma), but her star had been on the rise.

In 1989, Sciorra’s film debut in com­e­dy True Love led to an Inde­pen­dent Spir­it Award nom­i­na­tion. She fol­lowed this with a star­ring role oppo­site Wes­ley Snipes in Spike Lee’s Jun­gle Fever, which led to fur­ther crit­i­cal raves. The hot streak con­tin­ued in 1992 with the num­ber one box office hit, The Hand That Rocks the Cra­dle. Every­thing came crash­ing down, a career in tat­ters and a rep­u­ta­tion ruined after the alleged vio­lent rape and years of harass­ment at the hands of Wein­stein. This career slump didn’t go unno­ticed by those who knew Sciorra.

“Why did this woman, who was so tal­ent­ed, and rid­ing so high, doing hit after hit, then all of a sud­den fall off the map?” actress and friend Rosie Perez told jour­nal­ist Ronan Far­row about her rec­ol­lec­tions in the wake of Sciorra’s alleged attack. A few parts did come her way, but it wasn’t until 2001 when Scior­ra appeared on The Sopra­nos that audi­ences sat up and took notice once again. An Emmy nom­i­na­tion fol­lowed this career redefin­ing per­for­mance as Glo­ria, which show­cased her abil­i­ty to play a con­fi­dent woman who seem­ing­ly had it all but was tee­ter­ing on the edge of self-destruction.

Since the rev­e­la­tions, the women that had been labelled ​‘dif­fi­cult’ are being hired again. How­ev­er, the per­fect Hol­ly­wood end­ing is far from guar­an­teed. Cer­tain­ly, the land­scape and pow­er bal­ance has shift­ed over the last few years, but the true extent of how much has changed is unclear as var­i­ous legal bat­tles rage on in crim­i­nal and civ­il court (at the time of writ­ing, Wein­stein is on tri­al in New York City, a sec­ond crim­i­nal case will fol­low in Los Ange­les). It is impos­si­ble to mea­sure exact­ly what has been lost – both per­son­al­ly and pro­fes­sion­al­ly – and what would con­sti­tute vic­to­ry for the women seek­ing jus­tice. Nev­er­the­less, nag­ging ques­tions about the loss of sig­nif­i­cant roles in era-defin­ing movies have since come to light.

In some cas­es, what could be dis­missed as para­noia-laced fear has been cor­rob­o­rat­ed by a direc­tor who was swayed by the appar­ent smear cam­paign. ​“I recall Mira­max telling us they were a night­mare to work with and we should avoid them at all costs,” revealed Peter Jack­son after he had shown inter­est in cast­ing Mira Sorvi­no and Ash­ley Judd in the Lord of the Rings tril­o­gy. Tak­ing these claims at face val­ue meant Jack­son imme­di­ate­ly dis­missed the pair from con­sid­er­a­tion. Gos­sip has long been wield­ed as a weapon by Hol­ly­wood moguls to silence, shame, intim­i­date and destroy careers.

Often for­get­table tele­vi­sion and minor movie roles helped pay the bills when the lead­ing lady offers dried up. Sorvi­no spoke of the finan­cial toll to The LA Times regard­ing the alleged black­list­ing after the Oscar win, ​“Because that’s when I had the biggest poten­tial to solid­i­fy my career as a lead­ing lady, and to make the kind of eco­nom­ic strides that would have secured my fam­i­ly for­ev­er. And we’ve had some lean years over the last 10 years.” It isn’t just a case of los­ing out on per­son­al­ly ful­fill­ing parts, but also the job secu­ri­ty that comes with plau­dits and visibility.

While the tele­vi­sion indus­try itself isn’t free of sex­u­al preda­tors, for the movie actors who saw their careers destroyed by Wein­stein it’s tele­vi­sion that now pro­vides a chance for them to rein­vig­o­rate their stalled careers and remind audi­ences of their gifts. The land­scape has changed over the last 20 years, and tele­vi­sion is no longer viewed with dis­dain or as a dis­tant sec­ond-best to film.

As the gold­en age of tele­vi­sion gets set to head into yet anoth­er decade, many for­mer film stars who’ve found pres­ti­gious work for the small screen must be ques­tion­ing whether a splashy return to film would even be desir­able. Ash­ley Judd received an Emmy nom­i­na­tion in 2012 for mys­tery thriller mini-series, Miss­ing, as well as appear­ing in the crit­i­cal­ly laud­ed Twin Peaks: The Return. Along with the afore­men­tioned Sopra­nos career jolt, Scior­ra has recent­ly guest starred on GLOW, Dare­dev­il and Luke Cage, as well as land­ing a recur­ring role on the Apple TV+ series Truth Be Told. And Daryl Han­nah starred in the beloved (and can­celled-too-soon) Net­flix sci-fi series Sense8.

Ryan Mur­phy is one of the most pro­lif­ic TV pro­duc­ers of the 21^st cen­tu­ry and has recent­ly signed a mul­ti-mil­lion dol­lar deal with Net­flix. Two of his forth­com­ing projects have cast high-pro­file Wein­stein accusers, join­ing his ever-expand­ing act­ing troupe. Arquette will appear in Ratched – an ori­gin sto­ry based on the ​‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’ char­ac­ter of the same name.

The allure and per­ils of fame are often at the heart of Murphy’s work, and Hol­ly­wood is no dif­fer­ent, with Sorvi­no tapped to guest star. Set in the 1940s, Mur­phy has described Hol­ly­wood as, ​“a love let­ter to the Gold­en Age of Tin­sel­town,” and that it will explore how, ​“every­thing has changed and noth­ing has changed.” Before this, Sorvi­no flexed her comedic chops on sit­com Mod­ern Fam­i­ly as a Gwyneth Pal­trow-esque lifestyle guru.

This is not the final act of a grit­ty but ulti­mate­ly uplift­ing tale of tri­umph in the face of adver­si­ty with a cen­tral per­for­mance guar­an­teed to gar­ner an Oscar nom­i­na­tion, caus­ing the audi­ence to weep tears of joy at how far we have come. Rather, some­one needs to be held account­able, even if there is no form of rec­om­pense. Shift­ing the focus back to those who had their names tar­nished is one way to reclaim lost time.

Years have like­ly been snatched away from the tal­ent­ed women deemed ​“dif­fi­cult”, and while there is no quan­tifi­able way to mea­sure the over­all impact of the black­list­ing claims, the code has now been bro­ken and this ter­mi­nol­o­gy takes on new mean­ing. The tena­cious reporters who wouldn’t be intim­i­dat­ed and the brave sources that made their voic­es heard have start­ed to break the cycle. It took a mono­lith like Wein­stein to be top­pled for the enter­tain­ment indus­try to take claims of work­place harass­ment seri­ous­ly, but how can Hol­ly­wood ensure this doesn’t hap­pen again? This is a sto­ry yet to be written.