Twenty-five years ago, Jennifer Esposito says, a producer nearly ended her career. Now she’s channeling her anger into her directorial debut. The “Blue Bloods” star had just been “catapulted to Hollywood” after her role in Spike Lee’s 1999 thriller “Summer of Sam,” she said last week on the “She Pivots” podcast .
Then, a week into filming a new movie, the producer — whom Esposito left unnamed — fired her “for no reason.” “This was a notorious, brutal producer, a Harvey Weinstein-esque type of person. He literally had the power and used it to completely end a young girl’s career at 26 years old,” she said.
This producer allegedly discouraged everyone he knew from hiring her, falsely claiming she was a drug addict who had locked herself in a trailer on set. “Never happened,” Esposito said. She also believes he killed her chances to star in “Charlie’s Angels” after she had already received an offer.
Esposito’s agency knew of the producer’s actions, she said, but didn’t intervene because of his high profile and industry connections. Eventually, the young actor’s team dropped her, and she was left without representation for 21⁄2 years. “That was a really, really painful time,” Esposito said, for a “kid who had this dream since she was a baby.
” “But it was also a beautiful time, because if I wasn’t that kid, I would have never been this woman. I would never have wrote [sic] and directed what I just did, because, as I.
