‘She Said’ movie highlights the women who took on Harvey Weinstein

Actors Carey Mulligan and Zoe Kazan star as the award-winning journalists who broke the Harvey Weinstein sexual harassment scandal in the new film “She Said,” which premiered at the London Film Festival on Friday.

The movie is based on the 2019 book of the same name about the New York Times investigation into claims of sexual misconduct by Weinstein, then one of the most powerful producers in Hollywood. Mulligan and Kazan play Megan Twohey and Jodi Kantor, who wrote the book and won Pulitzer Prizes for their reporting.

“The film spoke to me as being just full of women being heroic, from the survivors, the witnesses to everyone at The Times who sort of made this happen,” Mulligan told Reuters on the red carpet.

Some of Weinstein’s accusers such as his former assistant Zelda Perkins and her colleague Rowena Chiu appeared at the premiere alongside the movie’s stars.

Chiu said seeing her story on the big screen felt “confusing.”

“There’s a whole mix of emotions, you feel sad about it, you feel angry about it, you feel sort of amazed that there are so many people taking an interest in it and it’s become such a big phenomenon,” she said. “So all these things sort of come at once – so you feel definitely a clash of emotions.”

After the Times story broke, some 100 women came forward with accusations of sexual misconduct by Weinstein. The reporting fueled the #MeToo movement, with women around the world calling out sexual harassment.

Weinstein, who has denied having non-consensual sex with anyone, was sentenced in New York in March 2020 to 23 years in prison for rape and sexual assault involving two women. He is appealing the verdict.

Weinstein is currently on trial in California on additional charges of sexual misconduct. He has pleaded not guilty.