Daily Mail - Daily Mail Weekend Magazine
NAKED TRUTH
In an extraordinarily frank interview, Olivia Williams reveals that she’s fought off cancer – as well as the amorous advances of Hollywood mogul Harvey. By Nicole Lampert
Olivia Williams reveals all about her nude scenes, her battle with cancer – and the night when Harvey Weinstein chased her round a room
As she is in a show about alternative universes, Olivia Williams often thinks about what would have happened if she had taken a different turn in life. What if she’d applied to law school instead of drama school? What if her fiancé hadn’t let her down weeks before the wedding? What if the doctors had not found her cancer? What if she’d said yes to Harvey Weinstein?
The star of hit films including The Sixth Sense, Rushmore, Peter Pan and An Education, who has now – like so many movie actors – ventured into television, was promised an Oscar-winning role by Harvey. But only in return for sexual favours.
‘I told him I did want an Oscar, but not that much,’ laughs Olivia, 50. For her, for many years, her stories about twice being chased by the now-notorious sexual predator were dinner party tales she would regale her friends with. It was only a year ago, however, that she realised how lucky her escape was.
‘I suppose for me it was uncomfortable but I turned it into something to laugh at – it was so absurd,’ she says. ‘But I don’t want to undermine the people who had dreadful experiences and were sexually assaulted by him. When all the other stories came out about him, I was shocked.’
At the time of the first incident Olivia was 29, already successful, and the Cambridge-educated daughter of two barristers. She has a strong and confident personality which shines through as we talk. But she can see how the persistence of producer Harvey, whose company Miramax has produced a string of Oscar winne r s , might have worked on someone younger and less experienced.
‘I had been at an awards ceremony and was on a table hosted by Miramax,’ she recalls. ‘Everyone went back to the Savoy for a party and I had far too much of the excellent free champagne. Everyone else left but I stayed to chat to Harvey in his room because he is an interesting bloke. He was telling me stories about how the Italian mafia tried to burn down one of his sets. Then, all of a sudden he said, “I’m just going to get changed into a robe.” Then he appears in his robe and asks if I’d like to give him a back massage.
‘He was clear as day; if I gave him a **** job he would get me an Oscar. That was what was on the table. There was no contact but he was chasing me around the room like a Benny Hi l l sketch. It was physically exhausting. In the end I ran out of the room saying, “I’m looking for a job but not that kind of job.”
‘I fell into the car that had been sent for me at the start of the evening. I said to the driver, “Oh my god, you will not believe what just happened to me,” and the driver said, “Yes I would”. He worked for the film company.’ Astonishingly, Weinstein tried it on again a few years later. ‘I was at the Sundance film festival; my career was in a good place and I was asked to a meeting about a new film Miramax were making. I read the script and it was a good script. The meeting was in a hotel room but I assumed it was with the director and other producers.
‘So I knocked on the door and Harvey was already in his gown and there was a hot tub bubbling on his balcony. He said, “Do you want to hop in?” I said, “I’m not interested in that sort of meeting,” and I didn’t stay.
‘He is the only person that ever tr ied it on like that with me. Through talking about it with friends I heard about others he had done that with – Heather Graham, Greta Scacchi – but I didn’t think that much about it because he didn’t actually touch me. As the daughter of a criminal barrister I knew that no criminal offence was made against my person. Sometimes I feel like a dinosaur, but making a fuss wasn’t something we did.
‘ But I do remember talking about it with my agent, worrying if it would affect my career. And I never did work for Miramax even though I was in some of the biggest movies of the 90s. All those years Miramax was making films I never
‘He chased me round the room. It was absurd’
got a job in one. Not that I’m complaining. I am happy to be here.’
Here is a London hotel in the late afternoon, where she is publicising the second series of her TV show; the complex, fascinating American spy-dramame et s-sci- fi Counter part, which has won her some of the best reviews of her ca re er. While she may not be as well known in Britain as her contemporary and friend Olivia Colman – with whom people frequently confuse her – in America, where she even had a part in huge 90s hit Friends, she is a big deal.
In the series, which can be found via Amazon Prime Video, she takes on two roles in parallel
‘I’ve been naked in films more than clothed’
worlds: in our world she is Emily Silk, who is married to Howard, played by Oscar winner JK Simmons, and who is in a coma after being hit by a car, and in the other world she’s another version of Emily called Emily Prime, and is a hard-bitten divorcee. The second universe was created by East German scientists in 1987, towards the end of the Cold War. Its existence is a huge secret, but some spies and agents from both worlds are able to travel between the two, and relations between them are increasingly hostile.
The Sliding Doors- style premise provokes discussion about the different directions life could have taken. While at Cambridge Olivia applied to drama school because she wanted a year off, thinking about ‘a serious job’ in law. But she started getting work almost immediately and has never looked back. In 1998 her seven-year romance with fellow actor Jonathan Cake ended just a few weeks before their wedding when he fell for his co-star Jemma Redgrave. But if she’d marr ied Jonathan she would not have got together with actor and playwright Rhashan Stone, her husband and the father of her two adored daughters. Another ‘ what if ’ is something she’s never talked about before publicly. In 2017, after four years of feeling ill, doctors discovered she had a rare form of cancer. The alternative universe of what would have happened if they had not caught it in time is too difficult to contemplate.
‘ I had four years of creeping weirdo symptoms that everyone told me were perimenopausal,’ she reveals. ‘The symptoms are very weird; a bad stomach, shortness of breath, a loss of appetite, but they could basically be anything. In the end I had a very determined gastroenterologist who works in the NHS and was like a dog with a bone.
‘I kept on going back to her and saying, “I’m still not well” and she kept on doing tests until she found what was wrong with me. Only one in ten million people ever get it.’
The doctor found she had neuroendocrine cancer in her pancreas, which had spread to her l iver. ‘ Telling my daughters was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, but I have an amazing husband and we did it together,’ she says, tears springing to her eyes.
The cure – if it is caught in time – is surgery to remove the cancer. Within two months she was back at work. ‘It was risky but I had the one operation and then it was gone,’ she says. ‘ The oncologist and surgeon were amazing – you fall in love with the people who save your l ife – and I am so pleased to live in a country where we have the NHS with all these amazing doctors.
‘The producers of Counterpart were so understanding and moved the schedule around completely so that I could have the operation and have time to recover.
‘Now I’m OK. In fact, I feel better than ever. I had been unwell for four years. I feel very, very lucky that it was found in time.’ Her smile is huge now, and she glows with good health. Still a stunning looking woman, who wears her few wrinkles proudly, she grins that she is hoping to be one of the few women in Hollywood who can play grandmothers – everyone else has had too much work done.
The operation to save her life means she couldn’t ever really contemplate having an operation to change her looks, like so many of her fellow actors. ‘ I wouldn’t want an MRSA from getting wrinkles done; I don’t want to spend any more time in hospital, but that’s my choice and I don’t judge anybody,’ she says. ‘ Our business means being looked at and you have to be able to look at yourself in the mirror and put yourself out there without fear of judgement.
‘ I have had to work hard on myself to get to the point where I say, “This is who you are, this is your material.” I did this crazy yoga where you stand in front of a mirror looking at yourself for an hour and a half, just looking.
‘ I feel that I was lucky to be born with the genetic randomness which means I can walk and talk and run and have babies and I am grateful for all of those things. I am quite relieved that having to be alluring is not something I have to worry about.’
Having said that, she is still up fo r a ny s ex scene a scr ipt calls for. In the second episode of Counterpart, which sees one of her characters romance a t oy b oy, the director asked her to channel the controversially erotic 1986 film Betty Blue.
‘I said, “If you think that is what people will want to look at I will show it to you, but the girl in Betty Blue was a 23-year-old French hottie and I am not,”’ she laughs. ‘I’ve done so many sex scenes over the years that I think I’ve been naked more in films than I’ve been clothed. They practically have to persuade me to put my clothes on. It doesn’t bother me at all.
‘I don’t have the kit to be a sex symbol. It is not my thing. No one is asking me to make porn, so if I’m asked to show a bit of nudity I know it’s not for the purpose of titillation but because it helps the story. The only time I have ever been asked to sign a photograph in a bikini was from a man on Death Row. I thought, “I feel a bit sorry that you might die but sorry mate, no.” Counterpart , from Sunday 9 December on Starzplay via Amazon Prime Video and Virgin.