How Actresses Allegedly Blacklisted by Harvey Weinstein Are Making Big Comebacks

Academy Award-winning actress Mira Sorvino is set for a guest role on Modern Family.Annabella Sciorra has just been tapped for a recurring role on GLOW. And Rose McGowanhas landed a five-part docu-series on E! titled Citizen Rose. These women share a grim but unifying commonality: all three of them publicly spoke out against Harvey Weinstein last year, making shocking claims of sexual misconduct that encouraged more women to come forward with allegations against the powerful producer (who has denied all allegations of nonconsensual acts).

In addition, all three publicly claimed that after their encounters with Weinstein—McGowan alleged that he raped her, as did Sciorra; Sorvino said he sexually harassed her—he blacklisted them from acting opportunities in Hollywood, which ultimately damaged their careers. But now that Hollywood is undergoing a sprawling and fearsome reckoning, all three women are making career comebacks, landing plum roles in the post-Weinstein era.

Sciorra’s role is the most recently announced of the three. On Friday, Deadline reported that she will have a recurring part on Season 2 of the Netflix wrestling dramedy GLOW, playing Rosalie Biagi, a mother to one of the characters. It’s a high-profile opportunity for the actress, though it’s unclear how prominent her role will be. For the last few years, Sciorra has landed guest spots on numerous TV shows, such as Bull,The Good Wife, and CSI; the GLOW role could mark her splashiest part since her Emmy-nominated turn on The Sopranos in the early aughts.

Back in October, Sciorra was one of the first actresses to share a graphic account of her alleged experience with Weinstein, claiming that the producer violently raped her in the 1990s and continued to sexually harass her for the next few years. Her career also suffered as a result, she claimed. “From 1992, I didn’t work again until 1995,” she told The New Yorker. “I just kept getting this pushback of ‘We heard you were difficult; we heard this or that.’ I think that that was the Harvey machine.”

Weinstein’s spokesperson Sallie Hofmeister told The New Yorker that he “unequivocally denies” the allegations.

Earlier in January, The Hollywood Reporter announced that Mira Sorvino would be doing a guest role on Modern Family, playing Nicole Rosemary Page, a woman who “runs a GOOP–esque lifestyles brand called NERP.” GOOP, coincidentally, is run by Gwyneth Paltrow, who also spoke out about Harvey Weinstein last October. Sorvino also stepped forward that month, alleging that Weinstein had sexually harassed her and tried to pressure her into a physical relationship. After she rebuffed him, Sorvino said, Weinstein blacklisted her. “There may have been other factors, but I definitely felt iced out and that my rejection of Harvey had something to do with it,” she told The New Yorker.

That allegation has since been backed up by filmmakers like Peter Jackson, who claimed that Miramax urged him not to hire Sorvino or Ashley Judd, another actress who later claimed that Weinstein had sexually harassed her.

“I recall Miramax telling us they were a nightmare to work with and we should avoid them at all costs. This was probably in 1998,” he said in a recent interview. When Sorvino saw Jackson’s comments, she tweeted that she “burst out crying.”

“There it is, confirmation that Harvey Weinstein derailed my career, something I suspected but was unsure,” she wrote.

A spokesperson for Weinstein later denied that the producer blacklisted Sorvino. Jackson fired back with a statement saying that aspects of Weinstein’s denial were “insincere.” Director Terry Zwigoffalso said in December that the Weinsteins had discouraged him from casting Sorvino in his 2003 comedy, Bad Santa. A representative for Weinstein told Deadline that the producer “denies speaking with Terry regarding casting.”

Like Sorvino, Rose McGowan has said that she believes Weinstein, and Hollywood at large, blacklisted her after the producer allegedly raped her. She has since become one of Weinstein’s most vocal critics after the allegations against him exploded in October, which has given McGowan an enormous variety of coverage. She was featured in Time’s “Person of the Year” issue and has since landed a docu-series at E! The series, Citizen Rose, will dive “into my mind and world,” the actress said, and is set to debut on Jan. 30, the same day as her upcoming memoir, Brave. Like Sorvino and Sciorra, McGowan is carving out a new path in the post-Weinstein era, moving into the next phase of her career as the industry around her figures out how to properly eradicate sexual harassment—in Hollywood and beyond.

Get Vanity Fair’s HWD NewsletterSign up for essential industry and award news from Hollywood.Yohana DestaYohana Desta is a Hollywood writer for VanityFair.com.