Yael Stone has appeared on ABC‘s 7.30 tonight – in a pre-recorded interview with Leigh Sales from a New York hotel room last week – to speak in detail about the sexual harassment allegations she made against Geoffrey Rush, published in the New York Times overnight.
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In the interview, Stone elaborates on previous claims – including that Rush used a mirror to try to watch her as she showered, and danced naked in front of her – and spoke about being asked to go home with the Oscar winner, when the cast of Belvoir‘s The Diary of a Madman in 2010-11 went out to a bar after a performance. Stone was just 25 years old at the time.
There was one evening, when we went out after a show, which is a very traditional kind of thing to do as a group of actors after a show, to kinda debrief and come down from the excitement. I was uncomfortable about going out on those evenings after shows. I told my boyfriend at the time I was uncomfortable about it. I was worried there was more that was expected of me than I could give.
On one of those evenings, Geoffrey in a very intimate – very physically intimate way – invited me to come home to his accommodation with him. There was no mistaking what that invitation meant and I declined that invitation. And again, I did so in a way that made clear I didn’t wanna sleep with him, but also was gentle enough that I could go to work the next day and not worry about being completely iced out.
I’d say that’s an example of a way that I was trying to tread this difficult path of managing and supporting a particular kind of ego and not having to physically compromise myself.
Stone describes writing in her journal at the time about not knowing how to balance “feeling compromised but also completely in awe of someone who has so much power“:
Towards the end of the season I write some pretty sad things about how I’ve never hated acting so much… I just couldn’t wait for the the show to be over, because I just did not know how to negotiate this enormous personality that had become a really defining part of my life.
She says she wrote to her family saying that, during the New York season of the production, that she felt that she was “at the whim of his moods and he’s – I think I used the words – quite presumptuous with me“.
When asked by Sales what she meant by Rush propositioning her in a “physically intimate way“, Stone explains: “The invitation was an invitation to physical intimacies and it was done so in a physically intimate manner: his mouth was very close to my ear, I could feel his lips up against my body.”
Stone also recalls how she rejected Rush’s advance: “I don’t recall the exact language but I used words to the effect of ‘No thank you, I don’t think I’d like to come home with you.’”
The interview concludes with Stone musing on what she wished her younger self understood about the power dynamic between herself and Rush, and what her role is in the production.
If I could talk to my younger self, I would say ‘Your work is enough. you’re in that room because your work is good. Managing someone else’s experience and serving them is not your job. Being a supportive and even enjoyable person to be around in the rehearsal process and during a show, absolutely. [But] being a court jester for somebody else is not necessary and it’s not appropriate.’
Rush has previously been accused of acting inappropriately with another young actress, Eryn Jean Norvill, over the course of the 2015-16 season of Sydney Theatre Company‘s King Lear. Defamation proceedings against The Daily Telegraph, who published then-anonymous sexual harassment allegations against Rush, are ongoing, with a court ruling expected next year.
You can watch the full 7.30 interview HERE.
