Actors Who'd Be More Famous If They Didn't Tick Somebody Off

Publish date: 2024-05-17

Before some of Hollywood's most heinous open secrets starting spilling into mainstream discourse in late 2017, and before the public knew the full extent of Harvey Weinstein's monstrous villainy, your average Joe and Jane would be forgiven for scratching their heads in confusion over Mira Sorvino's disappearance from the spotlight in the late 1990s.

Sorvino won a best supporting actress Oscar in 1996 for Mighty Aphrodite, enjoyed a short period of intense fame and next-big-thingism, and then all but disappeared from our screens. But when the allegations against Weinstein started pouring in like a biblical flood through a rotting dam, things started to make a bit more sense.

Sorvino told The New Yorker that Weinstein got inappropriately physical with her around the release of Mighty Aphrodite, and at one point chased her around a hotel room. By refusing his advances to the best of her ability, a smear campaign was set in motion. Directors Peter Jackson and Terry Zwigoff both later claimed Weinstein shot down any mention of Sorvino when they expressed interest in casting her in their upcoming movies, and it's unlikely these were isolated incidents.

She's not the only one, of course, and this is damage that can't really be undone. Careers were actively ruined by discrediting and silencing women like Sorvino, but at least their voices are no longer muffled.

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