*A movie director says he was once fired from a film because producer Harvey Weinstein decided that the woman he picked to star, black British actress Sophie Okonedo, wasn’t “f–kable.’’
“Harvey kept saying to me, ‘Do you think she is f–kable?’ That was what the deal was all the time,’’ Scottish filmmaker Michael Caton-Jones told BuzzFeed News. The movie was the 1998 cult classic “B. Monkey.’’
“‘I said, ‘She is the best actress for the job, Harvey,’” Caton-Jones said, referring to Okonedo. “And we started arguing about it. It was only when I said to Harvey, ‘Don’t screw up the casting of this film because you want to get laid,’ whereupon he went mental.”
Caton-Jones was eventually fired as the director and Okonedo, never got the job. The lead role instead went to actress Asia Argento — who is now among dozens of women accusing Weinstein of sexual abuse ranging from harassment to rape.
Caton-Jones told BuzzFeed that he first met Weinstein in 1989 while directing the film “Scandal’’ starring Bridget Fonda. The “Basic Instinct 2” director said Weinstein only appeared on set for the sex scenes.
He said he then crossed paths again with Weinstein a decade later, when Caton-Jones signed on to direct the Miramax-backed film “B. Monkey.’’
The basics of the deal was we were going to find an unknown, and we were going to cast her as the lead in the film,” Caton-Jones said. “There was extensive casting. We saw many, many girls, maybe 100 or so. And I ended up, I thought Sophie Okonedo would have been great for the part.”
But he said he knew Weinstein needed the final say, so he flew with Okonedo to meet the mogul at the Peninsula Hotel in Beverly Hills.
That’s when Weinstein doubted he could sleep with her, and he and Caton-Jones fought, the director said.
He said that for Weinstein, it all came down to “Sophie Okonedo was not f–kable and that was it. Find someone who is.”
Caton-Jones said Variety soon called him asking why he was no longer involved in the flick.
“I was furious after being kicked off my film, and I told them all about what happened,’’ he said. “I told them about the harassment claims, and I said here is your quote: ‘I don’t cast films according to Harvey Weinstein’s erection,’ and they just laughed.”
A Variety rep told BuzzFeed that he had no comment on something that occurred nearly 20 years ago. Neither Weinstein nor Okonedo returned the site’s requests for comment.
Below the trailer for “B. Monkey” with Asia Argento in the lead:
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