Thandie Newton was abused on a casting couch by an unnamed director when she was 18 and is still scarred by the “horrific” incident.
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“It was a screen test,” said the 40-year-old Londoner, whose filmography includes Run Fatboy Run and 2012.
“There were two other people in the room – the director and the casting director, who was a woman.
“The director asked me to sit with my legs apart – the camera was positioned where it could see up my skirt – to put my leg over the arm of the chair.
Three years later, she discovered the video was being shown by the director to other showbusiness figures.
Newton told CNN: “It turned out the director used to show that video late at night to interested parties at his house – a video of me touching myself with a camera up my skirt.”
She chose to speak out about her abuse as part of One Billion Rising, an international campaign to end violence against women.
“Before I started my dialogue, [I was told to] think about the character I was supposed to be having the dialogue with and how it felt to be made love to by this person.
“I was thinking, ‘This is so strange, why would I need to do that?’ But this is the director, there is the casting director, [it] must be normal. I’m 18 years old, you know, and I’m thinking this is, obviously… I was in a protected… there were boundaries.”
