A version of this “She Said” story first appeared in the Guilds & Critics Awards/Documentaries issue of awards magazine TheWrap.
They showed up at the New York Times building like journalists reporting for work, except the Times was closed due to COVID and the workers who showed up were actors: Zoe Kazan and Carey Mulligan playing the reporters, Patricia Clarkson and Andre Braugher as their editors. , and many others who borrowed the offices of the Times for a couple of weeks to film “She She Said.”
Recently released by Universal to strong reviews but tepid box office returns, director Maria Schrader’s film is based on Times reporters Jodi Kantor (Kazan) and Megan Twohey (Mulligan)’s book on how they broke the story of Harvey Weinstein. of sexual abuse. One of its strengths is the richness of the ensemble that filled what would otherwise have been a nearly empty Times building, along with the harrowing work of other actors like Jennifer Ehle and Samantha Morton, who appear midway through the film as survivors. from Weinstein. bad behavior.
“The cast of characters is fascinating in this movie and it’s very well observed and nuanced,” Clarkson said. “Every person that walks on the screen is so three-dimensional and rich.”
At the center of that ensemble are Kazan and Mulligan, who in real life have been close friends for over a decade. “We met 14 years ago, when we did (a Broadway production of) ‘The Seagull’ together at the age of 20,” Mulligan said. “We shared a small dressing room on the top floor and very quickly became very good friends. And ever since then we’ve been trying to find something to act in together: a play, a movie or a TV show, whatever.”
When Mulligan showed the script for “She Said” to her husband, musician Marcus Mumford, his response was immediate: “It’s amazing, and Zoe Kazan should play Jodi Kantor.” Mulligan had no say in the casting, but when she heard that Kazan was meeting with the producers, she called her friend immediately. “I remember talking to Zoe, and I was practically crying with emotion,” she said. “I didn’t want her to feel pressure, but she also couldn’t imagine me doing it with anyone else.”
Kazan said she found the script “very smart and inexpensive, and it portrays a kind of hard-working motherhood that I’ve rarely seen on film. And I found it tremendously moving: I cried when I first read the script, and every time after.”
Working together, Mulligan added, the actresses had simple shorthand. “We didn’t have to do any of the things to meet you,” she said. “He went right into sharing notes and ideas.”
The two actresses had a week to go over the script with Schrader (“Unorthodox,” “I’m Your Man”), then a second week with more cast members. “We got down to business in the New York Times building,” Mulligan said. “When you work with extraordinary actors like Patricia, Andre and Frank (Wood), they bring all that richness from day one. Andre was Dean (Baquet) and he made the newsroom feel like it was his own newsroom. Patricia has that presence, too, and Frank feels like someone who has worked at the New York Times for 30 years. That made it very easy for us to quickly build that relationship in the newsroom.”
“I thought being in the building was extraordinary,” Braugher said. “That building could potentially have been recreated on a set somewhere, but it wouldn’t have that kind of psychic truth. It was where things actually happened, as opposed to where we pretend they’re happening, you know?
The supporting cast came in and out briefly, with Morton in only one scene and Ehle appearing a handful of times. “I was only on set for two days,” said Ehle, who played Laura Madden, the first survivor to agree to publish in the Times. “We didn’t rehearse before, but I felt a great responsibility with Laura. I had to practice putting that aside so I could do my job and not feel shackled by my desire to honor her so much.”
To some degree, the entire ensemble felt that way, none more so than Clarkson, who made two movies with Weinstein. “There was so much at stake for me when I took this movie, being produced by Harvey and being bullied by him,” she said. “Luckily, Harvey never sexually abused me, but I have experienced his wrath in ways that have been demoralizing and impactful in my life. We’ve all come out of Harvey’s cesspool, and we’re all here to talk about it and tell the true story that his enablers kept from so many of us in Hollywood.”
For Kazan and Mulligan, neither of whom worked for Weinstein, the usual pressures of playing real people were mixed with a sense that “She Said” was not being made for reporters, but for victims and survivors. “I think that responsibility far outweighed the responsibility we feel to accurately portray Jodi and Megan,” Kazan said. “I think we all felt that on set, from the top down. I mean, even from Donna Langley, who is the head of Universal. Talking to Donna before we started filming, I thought, ‘Oh, we all have exactly the same goal in mind and feel the same weight of responsibility.’
“Everyone I went to school with, all my friends at home, we all grew up in a time that was predatory for women,” Mulligan added. “But it is also an issue that affected our mothers and grandmothers. Everyone has something in their lives that is affected by this, whether it is abuse and assault or just a feeling of being diminished by an environment where women feel inferior.
“We grew up armed against a threat and aware that as a girl and a woman there is a risk that is felt within all industries, and certainly within our own. That’s what makes this movie so universal: as Jodi says in the movie, if this is happening to actresses in Hollywood, who else could it be happening to?
But the Hollywood part of the equation is central to “She Said,” which is being launched by an industry that until the New York Times story and the rise of the MeToo movement continued to empower Harvey Weinstein and his ilk.
“What I keep thinking about,” Kazan said, “is that when you build a system to support a monster, everyone is involved. You cannot exist in the system without feeling some implication. And I think that’s why we need institutions like the New York Times to support people who are able to expose the truth.”
And does she see any real change now? “Progress is incremental and it doesn’t go in a straight line,” she said. “When this article came out in 2017, my knee-jerk reaction was, ‘Is this going to change anything?’ I felt the answer was going to be no, and I was wrong. And one of the biggest changes is that if the same article came out today, it wouldn’t have that question in mind.
“The solution is not going to come overnight, but I think we have started to hold people in power accountable.”
Read more from the Guilds & Critics/Documentary issue here.
