Julianna Margulies says both Harvey Weinstein and Steven Seagal tried to lure her into hotel rooms
Julianna Margulies is the latest actress to add an account of sexual harassment (and what could have easily been something worse) to the ever-growing pile of accusations that have been dropped on Hollywood’s doorstep of late. The Good Wife actress went on SiriusXM’s Just Jenny this week to recount two near-misses with two of the men whose alleged behavior toward women has been at the center of the growing controversy: Harvey Weinstein and Steven Seagal.
Margulies’ encounter with Seagal happened first, in her pre-ER days. “When I was 23,” the actress told host Jenny Hutt, “A casting director, a woman, said, ‘Steven Seagal wants to go over the scene with you in his hotel room at 10 o’clock at night.’ I got to the hotel at 10:40, and she wasn’t there. And he was. Alone. And he made sure that I saw his gun, which I had never seen a gun in real life. And I got out of there unscathed … I never was raped. And I never was harmed. And I don’t know how I got out of that hotel room … I sorta screamed my way out.”
Margulies said her encounter with Seagal informed her caution years later, when she received a similar invitation to meet with Weinstein in a hotel room, too. Refusing to go alone, she insisted that one of Weinstein’s assistants accompany her. “He opened the door, in a bathrobe. I could see that there were candles lit in the room, and there was a dinner for two. And I saw him stare at her, daggers…And he looked at me, furious…And he slammed the door. And, of course, I didn’t get the part.” Margulies—who’s currently lobbying for a new law designed to prevent children from being exposed to sexual abuse—also expressed her frustration with the women working for both men, and who helped to normalize their behavior. “These women were leading me to the lion’s den.”