Kate Winslet added her voice to the ever-growing chorus of entertainment industry stars speaking out in the wake of the Time’s Up and #MeToo movements.
The Academy Award winner received the Dilys Powell Award for excellence in film from the London Film Critics’ Circle on Sunday and used her acceptance speech to address sexual abuse in the industry and her own past silence on the issue.
Referencing the recent worldwide Women’s Marches, the 42-year-old actress said she could not “keep to myself some bitter regrets that I have about poor decisions to work with individuals with whom I wish I had not.”
She didn’t name names, but in 2009 Winslet won her only Oscar for “The Reader,” which was produced by Harvey Weinstein, and she starred in Woody Allen’s “Wonder Wheel,” which came out last year.
Allen’s career has come under renewed scrutiny lately since Dylan Farrow went on “CBS This Morning” on Jan. 18 to again repeat her claim — first made in 1992 — that Allen, her adoptive father, molested her when she was seven years old. The filmmaker has consistently denied the allegations.
Nearly a dozen actors — including Greta Gerwig (“To Rome With Love”), Hayley Atwell (“Cassandra’s Dream”) and Winslet’s “Wonder Wheel” co-star David Krumholtz — have expressed regret for working with Allen.
It is a big turnaround for Winslet, who told The New York Times last September that while “of course one thinks about” things like the allegations against Allen, she “had an extraordinary working experience with both” him and Roman Polanski, who has been accused of sexual assault by several women.
Sunday night though, Winslet realized she could not stay quiet any longer.
“It has become clear to me that by not saying anything, I might be adding to the anguish of many courageous women and men.”
