Harvey Weinstein, still the happy Oscar warrior: ‘We didn’t admit defeat’
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‘We never stopped!’ Harvey Weinstein confessed to Piers Morgan on CNN on Tuesday night about his awards campaign for ‘The King’s Speech.’
‘We didn’t admit defeat. We were defeated, but we just kept going. We worked hard, nose to grindstone -– tenacity.’
The defeat that fired Weinstein’s drive was losing the best motion picture drama award at the Golden Globes. At that point, ‘The Social Network’ had won all of the early film critics’ awards, so its triumph at the Globes made it look unstoppable while heading toward the Oscars next. But Weinstein and his ace awards campaigner, Lisa Taback, never -– amazingly -- lost faith.
‘I think losing the Golden Globe for best picture was, for me, feeling that was something we could win,’ Weinstein told Morgan. ‘Instead of making me quit, it motivated me the complete opposite way and at that point I said, ‘However many hours there are in a day, I’m gonna expand the amount!’
‘There’s only one thing you can do,’ he added. ‘You’ve got to get people to see your movie. You’ve got to create an atmosphere where people can appreciate your movie. To us, it was the timelessness of the movie. A lot of people said this movie or that movie is more younger, hipper, cooler, socially relevant. You have to say, ‘The timelessness, a classic movie, conquers all’ and that was what we wanted to get across.’
When ‘The King’s Speech’ won best picture, ‘I was elated, just absolutely jumping for joy,’ he said. ‘It was an amazing experience. It was fantastic.’
The victory was especially exciting for him because it marked Weinstein’s first best picture win since he broke from his old Miramax and Disney partners with whom he had three previous triumphs: ‘Chicago,’ ‘Shakespeare in Love’ and ‘The English Patient.’
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