Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey have had a busy few years. After breaking the news of Harvey Weinstein’s sexual harassment in The New York Times, the pair of journalists penned a bestseller entitled She Said: Breaking the Sexual Harassment Story That Helped Ignite a Movement that details the process of taking down the most powerful, well-connected man in the film industry. Their journey inspired the new film, She Said, which will hit theaters November 18.

To shine a light on this fascinating struggle to reveal the truth, Katie sat down with Twohey and Kantor to talk about the filming process and why they chose to weave their personal lives into the narrative of the film. Plus, the trio chats about the aftermath of the #MeToo movement and the legacy that is now taking shape a few years after the fallout of many abusive media juggernauts — including Katie’s former TODAY Show cohost Matt Lauer. Listen to this episode of Next Question for an eye-opening look at what unites victims of abuse and how they can help each other despite varying socioeconomic statuses, backgrounds, or levels of fame. Read highlights from their conversation and listen to the full episode below.

Katie Couric: How did you feel seeing yourselves portrayed? [The movie] shows some intimate stuff about your home life and some postpartum depression issues that [Megan was having].

Megan Twohey: I think we did feel vulnerable, but we also felt like this movie was an opportunity to do something. I think that’s pretty rare in movies — depicting the lives of working women.

We aren’t just living in the newsroom. We’re living our stories, but I had a newborn when I first started this investigation. It was a story I started right when I came back from maternity leave. Jodi had two daughters including a very young toddler at the time.

It would’ve been an incomplete story if you didn’t show the struggles that come with that. But also some of the satisfaction comes from doing work that can hopefully impact our daughters. While we felt vulnerable opening ourselves up to be depicted on screen, I think that there’s a big payoff. A lot of women are going to see themselves reflected in this movie, no matter what their line of work.

Jodi Kantor: It’s a film about the truth. The main thing that they captured that’s so important is the sincerity of the journalism and the sources. It’s such a gift to see a depiction of journalism as we try to practice it. There are so many representations of journalists in which we’re shown to be manipulative or doing it for the wrong reasons.

A powerful moment in the film is when you realize that if the women come together, it will be much easier for them to tell their stories. The movie does an extraordinary job of showing the damage that Harvey Weinstein did to so many young women.

MT: It was a bit of a leap for us to turn over this investigation to filmmakers. In a lot of the movies that have been made about journalism, you may get to know the journalists, but you don’t necessarily get to know the sources.

I think a lot of people associate the Weinstein story with all of these famous actresses who came forward. This movie really shines light on some of the more regular women.

The women who worked for him as assistants or as junior executives in his company. They went to work for him because, like so many women starting out, they wanted to break into this industry. Instead, they experienced attacks, harassment, and abuse. These are women you could bump into at your local cafe.

It wrote them out of the industry. One of the women, Zelda Perkins, who was a source in this story, had been silenced. There’s a wonderful scene where she’s meeting with Jodo and she says she basically went off to Guatemala after this happened. She fled not just the industry, but the country. The film does a really great job of capturing the toll that this takes — not just in the moment but for decades.

Doing research for my book and talking to people who had been victimized by Matt [Lauer], I was astounded by the trauma that still exists today, the residual trauma, and how much it has shaped their lives going forward. And it was very true, obviously, with all the victims…I just think it’s so powerful because I think so often about this kind of behavior has been dismissed. Like, “oh, get over it.” And I think it’s so important to show the lifelong ramifications of this.

JK: People think the Weinstein story is about sex. Of course, it’s about sexual misconduct. But it’s really about work. What unites all of these women with Weinstein stories? Whether they were actresses or assistants, they wanted opportunity. They wanted a piece of the action and Weinstein used that to make them vulnerable. This wasn’t like a producer meeting women in a bar. It was always a work situation. 

For a lot of those women, part of the loss is career loss. The feeling that I can’t get those years back. 

Would people have paid attention to this if [the victims] hadn’t been celebrities? 

JK: That’s what one of our editors, Matt Purdy, who’s depicted in the film, says. He’s remarked a few times that this was the first big sexual harassment story in which the women had more prestige and credibility than the man who was accused.

A very small group of brave sources can have an enormous worldwide impact. The question is how it is that these experiences can be so common.

And the uprising we saw in 2017 was about how women all over the world who actually had very little in common economically, religiously, and culturally. Yet they all had the same stories. How could this be so universal? I think we’re still grappling with what that means.

The final legacy is the question of how you confront a bully. It’s a really hard question. I feel like I’ve been struggling with that question since third grade. But there is an answer, and I feel like what I learned through this work is that you do it together.

A Harvey Weinstein is not in fact invincible, even when everybody thinks he is.