Hayley Atwell feels "lucky" she wasn't sexually harassed by Harvey Weinstein.
Hayley Atwell
The 35-year-old actress recently claimed she was called a "fat pig" by the movie mogul on the set of the 2008 film 'Brideshead Revisited', but she dismissed his criticism of her weight.
Now, in the wake of so many actresses and women going public with their experiences of harassment and sexual assault at the hands of Weinstein, Atwell is just relieved that she was only on the receiving end of an insult.
Speaking to The Times newspaper, Hayley said: "I woke up the next day going, 'How boring that now my weight is the topic of conversation.' And that is a form of sexism. When we talk about women and their body image, it is a form of control. It is a form of shaming a woman. Because the visual arts are so geared towards trying to have this sense of perfect self, women will crumble when they're brought down on their body weight. You don't talk to a woman about her body weight or her age. It's rude. But I'm not one of his victims. And I am so lucky that I wasn't. And I share in their grief and I will support them."
The 65-year-old film producer is currently being investigated after a an avalanche of sexual abuse allegations were made against him.
Recently Hayley - who will next be seen in the new adaptation of EM Forster's novel 'Howards End' - said she thinks society is ready to change from an attitude that views males as being superior, but she believes both men and women have to shift their perspectives in the right way to make things more equal.
She said: "For us now, it's the end of a generation. Weinstein comes from a generation of that powerhouse, macho, misogynistic, male bully. It's so brittle. We need to be talking about it in a way that men also feel safe enough to be vulnerable, and to speak out without feeling that they're going to be ridiculed or mocked or torn down because they have feelings."
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