Cate Blanchett Says Harvey Weinstein Sexually Harrassed Her
Cate Blanchett has officially joined the #MeToo movement.
The Oscar-winning actress bravely spoke out against Harvey Weinstein in a wide-ranging interview with Variety where she admits the embattled movie producer was an unwanted presence on a handful of her films and made inappropriate advancements to her on occasion.
“I think he really primarily preyed, like most predators, on the vulnerable,” Blanchett told Variety when questioned about her interactions with Weinstein. “I mean, I got a bad feeling from him…. He would often say to me, ‘We’re not friends.'”
She elaborated further saying she “wouldn’t do what he was asking me to do,” but refused to go into more detail about their professional relationship. Weinstein was a producer on several of Blanchett’s films, most recently Carol, a movie that saw her and Rooney Mara engage in a romantic relationship on screen and earned plenty of praise from critics.
Blanchett has been an outspoken advocate of the #TimesUp and #MeToo movements, throwing her support behind initiatives to encourage equal pay and more female film directors in the industry. Now, she’s not only added her name to the chorus of powerful women calling out Weinstein and other men in Hollywood for harmful treatment of women — Ashley Judd, Salma Hayek, and Lupita Nyong’o have all come forward with their own stories of sexual harassment with Weinstein denying the allegations — she’s also detailing her experience with pay disparity.
After Jennifer Lawrence penned an essay about her experience negotiating her salary for a film, and both Michelle Williams and Claire Foy made headlines when it was revealed they were paid substantially less than their male costars, Blanchett admitted she too had been denied proper compensation for her work in the past.
“It’s a huge issue. Show me one industry that has equal pay for equal work,” she told Variety.
The actress went on to address another controversy surrounding a notable male figure in Hollywood: Woody Allen. Blanchett has worked with the director in the past but with allegations of sexual abuse by his estranged daughter Dylan Farrow resurfacing, she’s ready to address critics claiming that she still supports the filmmaker. After suggesting that social media shouldn’t be “judge and jury” when asked in March about the situation, Blanchett cleared up her comments saying she hopes the issue goes back to court:
“Far more important than me adding to yet another headline… and finger-pointing is, if that issue has not been dealt with… I am absolutely for it to go back into the courts, because there lies the solution.”
