Alerts & Newsletters

By providing your information, you agree to our Terms of Use and our Privacy Policy. We use vendors that may also process your information to help provide our services. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA Enterprise and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Rose McGowan: Robert Rodriguez Filmed ‘Planet Terror’ Abuse Scene After She Told Him About Harvey Weinstein Rape

The outspoken actress reveals Rodriguez played "mind games" with her during the making of "Planet Terror," which included selling the film to the Weinstein-owned Dimension Films.
Rose McGowan
Rose McGowan
AP/REX/Shutterstock

Rose McGowan‘s memoir “BRAVE” is set to be released at the end of the month, and it promises to reveal a lot about the actress’ history battling sexual harassment and double standards in Hollywood, including the alleged rape by Harvey Weinstein during the 1997 Sundance Film Festival. In a new interview with Vanity Fair, McGowan teases the book by talking about a chapter in which she reveals the  “mind games” Robert Rodriguez played on her during the making of “Planet Terror.”

McGowan had been hand-picked by Rodriguez to play the heroine Cherry Darling in his half of “Grindhouse.” According to Vanity Fair, McGowan writes in her book that she fell fast for Rodriguez and trusted him enough to tell him about being raped by Weinstein, only for the director to “use the knowledge against her.” One example was a scene Rodriguez wrote and later filmed featuring McGowan’s character being attacked by a man played by co-director Quentin Tarantino.

“I was in a backward world,” McGowan writes about being forced to perform the scene after she confided in Rodriguez about her own history of abuse. “I was losing my grip on sanity.”

According to McGowan, the “ultimate act of cruelty” occurred when Rodriguez and Tarantino later sold the film to the Weinstein-owned Dimension Films. Tarantino himself has gone on the record about being aware of some of Weinstein’s abusive behavior. The passage as recounted by Vanity Fair reads:

In one of the memoir’s most gripping chapters, she recounts her affair with director Robert Rodriguez (“Spy Kids,” “From Dusk till Dawn”), a smooth-talking, sensitive-seeming guy who turned out to be a Svengali. He and Quentin Tarantino were planning a double feature—”Planet Terror” and “Death Proof”—based on pulp movies of the 1970s, and he wanted McGowan to star. McGowan fell hard and fast, trusting Rodriguez enough to tell him about her experience with Weinstein. He proceeded to use the knowledge against her, she claims, as a tool for mind games, starting with a scene in which Tarantino, playing a character in his movie, attacks McGowan’s character. “I was in a backward world,” she writes. “I was losing my grip on sanity.” In what McGowan interpreted as the ultimate act of cruelty, Rodriguez “sold our film to my monster.”

“BRAVE” will be released on January 30. Head over to Vanity Fair to read more of McGowan’s interview.

Daily Headlines
Daily Headlines covering Film, TV and more.

By providing your information, you agree to our Terms of Use and our Privacy Policy. We use vendors that may also process your information to help provide our services. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA Enterprise and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Must Read
PMC Logo
IndieWire is a part of Penske Media Corporation. © 2024 IndieWire Media, LLC. All Rights Reserved.