Rebecca Hall is walking back the statement she made in 2018 about Woody Allen during the #MeToo movement after Dylan Farrow published an op-ed once again calling him out for allegedly sexually abusing her as a child.
Hall, who starred in Allen’s films A Rainy Day In New York and Vicky Cristina Barcelona, admitted in an interview with The Guardian that she regrets speaking out against her work with Allen at the time.
“I struggle with this one,” Hall said. “It’s very unlike me to make a public statement about anything. I make the stuff, that’s how I am political. I don’t think of myself as an ‘actor-vist,’ I’m not that person.”
She added, “I kind of regret making that statement, because I don’t think it’s the responsibility of his actors to speak to that situation.”
At the time, Hall wrote in the since-deleted post that Farrow’s op-ed helped her “see, not only how complicated this matter is, but that my actions have made another woman feel silenced and dismissed,” per Entertainment Weekly. She also announced in the post that she would be donating her salary from A Rainy Day In New York to the Time’s Up Legal Defense Fund.
Speaking to The Guardian, Hall explained that she wrote the statement after filming a scene with Jude Law for A Rainy Day in New York.
“I was outside, shooting a street scene with Jude Law where, literally, my dialogue was, ‘You’ve got to stop sleeping with these fucking 15-year-olds.’ And that day, the [Harvey] Weinstein scandal breaks,” she recalled. “There’s a bank of journalists and paparazzi right there, because Weinstein’s a producer on it, and they’re all listening to me say this.”
She told The Guardian, “I was in a tangle. Like, in this moment, it’s the most important thing to believe the women,” referring to her decision to speak out at the time. “Yes, of course, there’s going to be complications and nuances in these stories, but we’re redressing a balance here. So I felt like I wanted to do something definitive.”
The actress maintained that actors shouldn’t hold the responsibility of the allegations surrounding Allen. For now, she says, her policy is just “to be an artist.”
“It just became, ‘Another person denounces Woody Allen and regrets working with him’, which is not what I said actually. I don’t regret working with him. He gave me a great job opportunity and he was kind to me,” she said. “I don’t talk to him any more, but I don’t think that we should be the ones who are doing judge and jury on this.”
Allen has long denied the accusations Farrow launched against him. He also notes that his career has not suffered from the accusations.
“The situation has been investigated by two people, two major bodies, not people, but two major investigative bodies. And both, after long detailed investigations, concluded there was no merit to these charges,” he told Variety in a 2023 interview. “The fact that it lingers on always makes me think that maybe people like the idea that it lingers on. You know, maybe there’s something appealing to people. But why?”
The allegations were also explored in the HBO documentary Allen v. Farrow.
If you or someone you know needs to reach out about sexual abuse or assault, RAINN is available 24/7 at 800-656-HOPE (4673), or online at RAINN.org.
The post Rebecca Hall Flip-Flops On Woody Allen Stance As She Says It’s Not Her “Responsibility” To Be The “Judge And Jury” appeared first on Decider.
