Harvey Weinstein Threw A Wrench In Eddie Redmayne's My Week With Marilyn Performance

As if the divisive reception to Andrew Dominik's "Blonde" wasn't already an indication, the legacy of Marilyn Monroe still shows widespread interest in her story. The "Some Like It Hot" star is propped up as one of the great Hollywood legends, after all. She represented the glamor of show business, but behind closed doors, the life of Norma Jeane was a bit more complicated.

In 1956, Monroe traveled to London, where she was going to star in Laurence Olivier's "The Prince and the Showgirl." During production, the actress notoriously had a difficult time learning her lines, as well as showing up to set on time. The 2011 biographical drama "My Week With Marilyn" depicts this period of Monroe's life, where she formed a kinship with production assistant Colin Clark. He was her wrangler of sorts, and one of the people who got to see a side of Monroe few ever did.

In the film, Monroe is played by Michelle Williams, who perfectly captures the spirit of the star's presence, both on and off-screen. Eddie Redmayne does an admirable job playing a man whose passion for the film industry ultimately lands him in the arms of the biggest movie star in the world. He's pretty good, but Williams is on such a whole other level that his performance is unfortunately overshadowed.

There's also another, more devastating reason why Redmayne's performance wasn't as great as it could have been.

Redmayne only had a passing knowledge of Monroe's life, yet was so wrapped up in Clark's story that he really wanted to do something special with "My Week With Marilyn." Unfortunately, since convicted rapist Harvey Weinstein was an executive producer, he could be found walking around the film's set, which seriously put Redmayne on edge.

While participating in a Vanity Fair retrospective about his career, Redmayne talked about how Weinstein got in his head:

"I remember he told me, on day one, to walk with him. He said, 'Walk me.' And I was terrified. And he sort of told me that basically he didn't want me in the movie, and that I was moving my face too much. Um, so my sort of overwhelming memory of that film is just trying not to move my face, which is ... Explains quite a lot of the performance."

Leave it to one of the industry's most destructive forces to be a prick to an actor on their first day. The only good thing Weinstein ever did was go away on account of his decades-long damage finally catching up to him. There's also something so disgusting about an industry-wide abuser having any semblance of power regarding a story that involves Monroe. Redmayne would get the last laugh, however, as he went on to win Best Actor at the Academy Awards for "The Theory of Everything."

"My Week With Marilyn" is currently streaming on HBO Max.