LONDON: Actor John Malkovich will take the starring role in a new play by Pulitzer Prize winner David Mamet about a disgraced Hollywood studio head, a story he said was written partly in reaction to the scandal engulfing film producer Harvey Weinstein.
Speaking to BBC Radio on Tuesday, Malkovich described “Bitter Wheat,” which opens in London in the summer, as “a black farce about a very badly behaved movie mogul,” who he said was “not particularly” Weinstein. The producer will go on trial in New York in May on charges of sexually assaulting two women.
“It’s a great deal about that business and a great deal about how people in that business, in positions say as studio heads have behaved really for more or less a century now. So many of them were so notoriously badly behaved,” he said.
More than 70 women, mainly young actresses and others working in film, have accused Weinstein, 66, of sexual misconduct, including assault, dating back decades. He has denied all the accusations.
The scandal helped kick off the #MeToo movement, in which dozens of powerful men in Hollywood and beyond have been accused of sexual misconduct.