Jennifer Esposito says 'Harvey Weinstein-esque' producer tried to 'completely end' her career
Jennifer Esposito is reflecting on the "painful" moment a "brutal" producer nearly ended her career.
The "Blue Bloods" star, 51, revealed on the "She Pivots" podcast that she was once fired from a movie by a producer who then set out to blacklist her from Hollywood.
"This was a notorious, brutal producer, a Harvey Weinstein-esque type person," she said.
Esposito's firing occurred on a movie whose director told her he was fighting with the producer and that "no one wants you here," she recalled. She was 26 at the time.
The actress said that she, and several other cast members, "became a casualty" in this fight. The producer fired her "for no reason" and then attempted to "completely end" her career by telling others in Hollywood not to hire her and falsely claiming she was a drug addict, she alleged.
Esposito said this producer's actions led her to be dropped by her agency, which told her, "We can't help you because he's who he is, and he's that big, and we have to have clients that work for him."
The "Crash" star added that she couldn't get work and didn't have an agent or manager for more than two years. When she did get another film role, her new management team had to attest to the fact that she was not a drug addict, she said.
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"That was a really, really, painful time, because that kid who was waiting tables and that kid who had this dream since she was a baby, he literally took it because he could and killed it," she said.
Esposito did not name the producer but said it was someone who was "at every" Oscars ceremony. She also alleged this producer killed her chances to star in "Charlie's Angels" after she had already received an offer.
"I was like, 'Wait a minute, I was in the room with the ladies,'" she remembered saying. "'This was my job. What happened?' And we found out that he put the kibosh on one of the biggest things that ever happened in my career — could have happened. So I had to live with that."
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Esposito continued that after losing out on "Charlie's Angels," which "would have opened doors" for her, she was "broke" and "traumatized."
The actress, who has had roles in movies like "Summer of Sam" and shows like "NCIS" and "The Boys," recently made her directorial debut with the crime film "Fresh Kills," which she also wrote and starred in.
On the podcast, she said she made the movie for the 26-year-old version of herself who "got slaughtered."
"I gave her her career back in the way that she could do it, not the way someone else told me I could do it," she said. "I gave that to that kid, because I needed to right the wrong."
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Jennifer Esposito says 'brutal' producer tried to end her career
