Jessica Chastain has said a famous actor told her to “calm down” about Harvey Weinstein following allegations of sexual misconduct being made against him.
The Interstellar star has been outspoken on social media since the allegations were made public. In October, she tweeted: “I’m sick of the media demanding only women speak up. What about the men? Perhaps many are afraid to look at their own behavior…”
Appearing on The Graham Norton Show, Chastain explained: “I was tweeting a lot at the time and actually got an email from a well-known actor that said, ‘Calm down.'”
Yes. Im sick of the media demanding only women speak up. What about the men? Perhaps many are afraid to look at their own behavior….. https://t.co/tGUsjUYNMR
— Jessica Chastain (@jes_chastain) October 9, 2017
“I found that heartbreaking and can only think he didn’t understand the movement that was happening,” she added, according to People. She did not name the actor who sent her the message.
Hollywood mogul Weinstein has been accused of sexually assaulting, raping or harassing up to 40 women, in both America and the UK, and is the subject of a criminal investigation and a class action lawsuit. He “unequivocally denies” any allegations of non-consensual sex.
Earlier this week, Jennifer Lawrence discussed the Weinstein scandal, saying that she had known that he was a “brute” and a “dog”, but never thought that he was a “rapist”.
She said: “Just speaking for myself, I had known him since I was 20, and he had only ever been nice to me — except for the moments that he wasn’t, and then I called him an asshole, and we moved on. He was paternal to me. So I needed a moment to process everything because I thought I knew this guy, and then he’s being accused of rape.
“We all knew he was a dog, we knew that he was a… tough guy, a brute, a tough guy to negotiate with. I didn’t know that he was a rapist. And it’s so widespread, the abuse, from so many different people — it’s directors, it’s producers — that I think everybody needed to [process it]. Everybody needs to deal with this in their own way; everybody needs to heal.”