Mira Sorvino Says Casting Director Gagged Her With A Condom When She Was 16

Mira Sorvino said she was “completely treated inappropriately” by a casting director when she was 16.

The Academy Award-winning actress recounted a shocking story about one of her first auditions to the Hollywood Foreign Press Association during a Wednesday interview on the HFPA In Conversation podcast.

Sorvino, 50, said that the casting director tied her to a chair and gagged her with a condom. She said he was supposedly trying to scare her in preparation for a scene in a horror movie.  

“In order to scare me for this horror movie scene, he tied me to a chair, he bruised my arm and — I was 16 years old — and then he gagged me,” Sorvino told HFPA. “And I was all like game because I was trying to be scared for the scene blah, blah, blah and at the end, he takes the gag out of my mouth and he says ‘Sorry for the prophylactic.’ So he gagged me with a condom.”

The “Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion” actress said she barely realized what was happening at the time. 

“I was a too young to even know ― thank God — what a condom tasted like. It was so inappropriate and what the heck was a casting director doing with a condom in his pocket in an audition?” she said, adding: “That was one of my introductions to how the acting system works.” 

Sorvino, who was one of the first women to publicly accuse Harvey Weinstein of sexual misconduct, added that there have been “other situations” similar to this experience that have happened throughout her career. 

Later in the conversation, Sorvino recalled a sexual harassment experience with an Oscar-winning director “known for his social justice profile.”  

“[He] literally said to me at like a very end stage audition meeting thing, ‘You know, as I look at you my mind can’t help but traveling from the artistic possibilities and the sexual,’” she said. 

Sorvino, who didn’t name the director, said she just “smiled nervously back.” 

“In my mind, the thing going on in my head, was ‘Oh, I thought this was a legitimate meeting.’ I thought this was an actual, you had me here, because you thought I was talented or that I brought something that would be good for this role. Not that you were here fishing to see if I was going to have an affair with you,” she said. “So, I didn’t get that part. I know for a fact that’s why I didn’t get that part.”