A 2023 Hollywood Reporter interview with the legendary director James Cameron commemorating twenty-five years of Titanic brought forth some interesting tales. One among them that caught most of the public’s attention was the incident that had transpired on the night of the 70th Academy Awards. According to the director himself, a physical fight almost broke out between him and the now-disgraced producer Harvey Weinstein. All because James Cameron strongly supported his friend Guillermo del Toro.
The Mexican filmmaker has been pretty vocal about how much he dreaded working with Weinstein. Although del Toro confessed this fact years later to the public, Cameron was aware of what went on behind the scenes in real time. Here is everything that is known about the incidents.
James Cameron Was Ready to Beat Harvey Weinstein Up with His Oscar
The night James Cameron‘s film Titanic was nominated for a staggering 14 Academy Awards, was the same night he delivered the “I am the king of the world” speech. But that wasn’t all, the glorious night became even more eventful when the director was approached by Harvey Weinstein and things got a little heated. As he stated in the THR interview,
“If you want to come to work at a place that’s a friend of the artist, a friend of the filmmaker–holding his hand out, and I just blew him off. It was just an ugly little moment.”
Cameron deliberately brushed off the industry giant knowing it could lead him to trouble. Being aware of all the filth his dear friend Guillermo del Toro was dragged through, the Avatar director decided to speak up. As he recalled,
“I didn’t know Harvey from Adam. I didn’t know anything about him other than what I had learned from Guillermo del Toro. Guillermo and I had been close friends since 1991. He had told me the horrible sh*t that Miramax pulled on him when he made his first American commercial film, Mimic, and they fired him.”
He further continued stating,
“But, yeah, I did defend Guillermo and I called Harvey on his bullsh*t, and then he got very loud and verbally abusive and almost potentially physically violent. And he was about to get clocked by an Oscar — which would’ve been highly appropriate, I think. But I wasn’t thinking about it in those terms; it was just the weapon at hand.”
Although Weinstein was excited about introducing himself to the director, after Cameron started speaking the producer’s mask fell off, revealing his true ugly self, verbally abusing the director, almost ready to spring on him. That is when the director decided to put his all-new glimmering Oscar to the test. Fortunately, that wasn’t required and the situation was dissolved before anything serious happened.
Guillermo del Toro’s Experience Working With Harvey Weinstein on Mimic
As James Cameron briefly stated, in the 2023 THR interview, Guillermo del Toro was put through hell while working on Mimic. In 2017, the filmmaker himself came forward at the BFI London Film Festival (via IndieWire) stating,
“ I really hated the experience, My first American experience was almost my last because it was with the Weinsteins and Miramax. I have got to tell you, two horrible things happened in the late nineties, my father was kidnapped and I worked with the Weinsteins. I know which one was worse… the kidnapping made more sense, I knew what they wanted.”
While the two worked on the 1997 film, Weinstein being the producer of the movie fired Guillermo del Toro, due to creative differences but was later forced to rehire him when all the actors involved revolted against the act. The Blade 2 director is thus not particularly an admirer of the producer. When rehired the director, started rebelling against Weinstein’s rules in every little way possible which made Mimic even more special to him.
Mimic is now available on Paramount+ to stream.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter and IndieWire
