Natalie Portman has urged Hollywood to stop calling women "crazy".

Natalie Portman

Natalie Portman

The 37-year-old actress spoke out about sexual harassment, equal pay, and representation when she appeared as an honouree at Variety's Power of Women summit over the weekend, and said Hollywood should stop allowing men to "discredit" women's reputations by branding them as "difficult".

She said: "Stop the rhetoric that a woman is crazy or difficult. If a man says to you that a woman is crazy or difficult, ask him, 'What bad thing did you do to her?' ... That's a code word. He's trying to discredit her reputation. Make efforts to hire people who've had their reputations smeared in retaliation."

The 'Black Swan' star - who has kids Aleph, seven, and 19-month-old Amalia with her husband Benjamin Millepied - also spoke about the importance of diversity, and said people should be "embarrassed" if everyone in their workplace looks the same as them.

She added: "If any group you're in has only people who look like you, change that group. It's an awakening experience to hear from women who have different experiences of marginalisation ... Be embarrassed if everyone in your workplace looks like you. Pay attention to physical ability, age, race, sexual orientation, gender identity."

And the 'Annihilation' actress gave advice on how to deal with those who "abuse their power", saying people shouldn't be afraid to make them face "consequences".

She said: "Don't shy away from consequences for those who abuse their power. [They're] not going to have a change of behaviour out of the goodness of their hearts. Do not harm women this year. Let's see how that goes."

The beauty is known for her activism, and recently revealed her definition of abuse has changed in light of the #MeToo movement.

Speaking earlier this month, she said: "It was amazing how many things that I didn't even categorise as abusive behaviour.

"I just thought it was [something that] made me really upset or made me uncomfortable. And now I think all of this reckoning has made me even be like, 'Oh that wasn't just a bad date, that was an abusive date', 'That wasn't just an uncomfortable meeting, that was an abusive meeting'... And has made me look at things differently and hopefully it'll prevent this kind of behaviour when people are, men and women, are more aware of that."

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