Actor Thandie Newton has put the spotlight on sexual abuse in Hollywood saying she was a victim of a shocking situation when a movie director took advantage of her.
The 43-year-old actor has made a name for herself over the years in movies such as Crash and Mission: Impossible II.
Newton, in a new interview with W magazine, recalled how the director asked her to do inappropriate things during an audition.
“I thought, ‘OK, this is a little weird’, but there was a female casting director in the room and I’d done weird stuff before so I did it.”
Despite her concerns about the situation, Newton put it behind her and moved on with her life. But as she attended a film festival years later, she met a producer who had over indulged in alcohol, who told her: “Oh, Thandie, I’ve seen you recently!”.
“And he lurched away looking really shocked that he’d said that,” she said.
When Newton’s husband Ol Parker asked the man to explain what he meant, the producer said that “the director was showing that audition tape to his friends after poker games at his house.”
The actor has decided to speak out about the incident in the hope of making other young actresses understand that sort of situation is unacceptable.
“I was so so naive when I started out and I realise now that we have to prepare our kids – I’ve got two beautiful daughters, one is 16 one is 11.
“One person will read this and it will stop them getting sexually abused by a director. That’s the person I’m interested in.”
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