Roman Polanski has been fighting to return to the US, after fleeing a potential 50 year sentence for drugging and raping 13-year-old Samantha Geimer in 1977.
It’s rare for the 84-year-old director to discuss his conviction and the multiple extradition attempts by US officials, but according to the Hollywood Reporter, he was feeling quite chatty at a presser at the Zurich Film Festival for his new movie, Based on a True Story, this weekend:
“As you know Samantha Geimer has been asking for over 30 years for this thing to end,” Polanski said. “But, I’m sorry the judges who dealt with it the last 40 years were corrupted, one covering for the other. So I don’t maybe one of them will (eventually) stop doing it.”
You will probably not be surprised to read that, in regards to his crime, Polanski feels he has done his penance and more:
“As far as what I did: It’s over. I pleaded guilty,” said Polanski. “I went to jail. I came back to the United States to do it, people forget about that, or don’t even know. I then was locked up here (in Zurich) after this festival. So in the sum, I did about 4 or 5 times than what was promised to me.”
Polanski has long maintained that a judge double-crossed him on his plea deal to serve only 48 days in prison, which instigated his run from the law. He now lives in France with his wife, actress Emmanuelle Seigner, who stars in Based On A True Story. The plot revolves around a conflict between two women, which Polanski says was interesting to him as a director because women are “more perfidious than the men, in general.”