Woody Allen says he should be #MeToo's 'Poster Boy,' Penelope Cruz calls for abuse case to be reopened
Woody Allen says he should be the ‘poster boy’ for the #MeToo movement as Penelope Cruz has called for his child abuse case to be reopened.
Allen was speaking to Argentina’s Channel 13 in New York in an interview broadcast on Sunday night.
“It’s funny, I should be the poster boy for the #MeToo movement because I’ve worked in movies for 50 years, I’ve worked with hundreds of actresses… and not a single one, big ones, famous ones, have ever, ever, suggested any kind of impropriety at all,” he said.
“I’m in principle, and in spirit, completely in favour of their bringing to justice genuine harassers.
“Now, if innocent ones get swept up in there, that’s very sad for the person, it’s unjust, but otherwise, I think it’s a very good thing to expose harassment.”
Accusations that the Annie Hall director molested his daughter Dylan Farrow have dogged Allen since the 1990s. Allen’s ex-wife Mia Farrow claimed that he abused her at their home when she was seven-years-old, claims that Dylan herself renewed in 2014, and then detailed in a televised interview last year.
Penelope Cruz, who won an Oscar for her role in Allen’s film Vicky Christina Barcelona in 2008, has suggested that the case against him be re-opened, but in order for Allen to clear his name.
“The case has to be looked at again,” she told Vanity Fair. “The important thing is, if there is a case anywhere in the world that isn’t clear, then why not look at it again? I am in favour of that.
“We have a collection of headlines saying this actor would work with him again, and this one said they wouldn’t – this doesn’t change anything. This doesn’t add anything good to the situation.
“We’re supposed to believe in justice, and this was looked at years ago, and it’s not clear. It should be looked at again.”
Cruz’s husband Javier Bardem, who she met on the set of Vicky Christina Barcelona, is also a supporter of Allen.
Asked in April by Paris Match if he was ashamed to have worked with Allen, he said ‘absolutely not’.
“I am very shocked by this sudden treatment,” he continued. “Judgments in the states of New York and Connecticut found him innocent. The legal situation today is the same as in 2007.”
The director has always denied the claims, and while he was investigated, he was never charged.
Since the reemergence of the allegations, a number of actors and actresses who have worked with Allen, among them Ellen Page and Colin Firth have said that they would never do so again.
“What bothers me is that I get linked in with them,” Allen said.
“People who have been accused by 20 women, 50 women, 100 women of abuse, and abuse, and abuse, and I, who was only accused by one woman, in a child custody case, which was looked at, and proven to be untrue, I get lumped in with these people.
“This is something that had been thoroughly analyzed 25 years ago by all the authorities and all came to the conclusion that it was not true. And that was the end and I continued with my life.”
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