NEW YORK: Julianna Margulies recalled an encounter with Steven Seagal during an interview on Sirius XM’s “Just Jenny” Friday morning, in which Margulies met the actor at a hotel after a female casting director told her he wanted to go over a scene.
“I lived in Brooklyn,” the “Good Wife” actress, who was 23 at the time, remembered. “And I said, ‘Oh, I don’t do that. I don’t travel. I don’t have money for a cab.’ And I didn’t. And she says, ‘Don’t worry, we’ll reimburse you. And I’m here.’”
Margulies said when she arrived at the hotel room, Seagal was armed with a gun.
“I got to the hotel around 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,” she continued. “I got out of there unscathed…I never was raped, and I never was harmed. I don’t know how I got out of that hotel room.”
She continued that she learned from the experience, and when she was asked later on by a female assistant of Harvey Weinstein’s to meet with the producer in a hotel room to discuss a film role she had auditioned for, she declined.
“She said ‘I’m going to drop you off at the Peninsula,’ and I said, ‘I’m not going up there alone.’ I saw how she started to sweat. She was like, ‘Don’t be silly, I’m just going to drop you off. It’s going to be fine.’ And I said, ‘Nope, then I’m going home,”” the actress recalled.
According to Margulies, the assistant accompanied her up to the hotel room, and when Weinstein opened the door, he was wearing a bathrobe with candles and a dinner for two set up inside.
“I saw him stare at her, daggers. And I turned to see what she had done to deserve that, and I caught her in a shrug, like ‘What could I do?’” Margulies said. “He looked at me, furious, and he took the door and he said, ‘Just wanted to say great audition.’ And he slammed the door. Of course I didn’t get the part.”
Margulies stated that if it weren’t for the earlier encounter with Seagal and the fact that her career was already established at the time of the Weinstein incident, she would have gone inside.
The actress said she felt “set up” by the casting director. “It’s not always the men that are awful…We have to start holding these people accountable.”