George Clooney rebuffs the idea of a Hollywood ‘witch hunt’

LOS ANGELES — Some of Hollywood’s biggest stars surfaced at the Suburbicon premiere, and they did not shy away from the Harvey Weinstein controversy upending their industry.

Sexual harassment stories about the disgraced movie mogul continued to grow over the weekend, followed by Sunday’s Los Angeles Times expose alleging similar predatory behaviour by director James Toback.

Nonetheless, a rather routine scene played out in Westwood on Sunday night, where the cast turned out to debut George Clooney’s new Coen brothers-style satire, told against a backdrop of racism and white privilege in the 1950s.

Clooney, who directed the film, walked the red carpet with Matt Damon and Julianne Moore. Prior to the stars’ arrival, studio representatives promised the A-listers would talk to “everyone” (meaning they would not pose for photos and duck inside, a common strategy for avoiding hot topics).

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They kept to their word.

George Clooney

 We wanted to know: Has the Weinstein scandal changed the way Clooney and his producing partner Grant Heslov think about who they’re choosing to do work with?

“Certainly some of the people we’re doing business with, yeah,” Clooney told USA TODAY after posing for photos with his wife, Amal.

“I think the teachable moment isn’t just with this industry,” he continued, name-checking Saturday’s disclosure that Fox News reupped a contract with Bill O’Reilly after he paid out a $32 million settlement for sexual harassment. “If anything, what we hope is that this is a watershed moment for us as a society where women feel safe enough to talk about this issue, feel believed.”

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Clooney embraced an environment of accountability, “where men who are committing these crimes, these violations, don’t feel safe, and feel as if they do these things, they are going to be outed, they’re going to be sued, they may even get litigated, maybe even go to jail for it”, he said. “If we can get to that point, then we’ve actually succeeded.”

He disagreed with Woody Allen, who recently told BBC News he hoped that the allegations against Weinstein would lead to “some amelioration”, but not “to a witch hunt atmosphere” in Hollywood. (Allen subsequently emphasised in a statement that Weinstein is a “sick, sad man”.)

Earlier: Harvey We “instein responds, has ‘different recollection” of Nyong’o claims.

Clooney called the remark “a stupid thing to say. The reality is, it’s not a witch hunt to these women who were trapped in a hotel room and told they were going to get a part and then suddenly out comes Harvey Weinstein in his birthday suit. That’s not a witch hunt, that’s an assault.”

 Matt Damon

 Damon, who brought his wife, Luciana, told USA TODAY that he, too, hoped for a “massive, systemic change” in the industry following the Weinstein scandal.

“The fact that somebody that powerful, his career has been completely ruined — that’s a real message to anyone who would behave like this,” he said, crediting social media with raising the voices of women. “It has to change. Maybe I’m totally naive. I just don’t see how someone could even think they could get away with this anymore, in this day and age. Seriously.”

Related: Directors Guild brings disciplinary charges against Harvey Weinstein.

 Julianne Moore

 Moore had just read about two lawmakers in New York working to pass legislation that releases women from non-disclosure agreements in cases of harassment.

“I was like, thank God,” she said. “Because that was my first question, how is this legal? How can people be protected for these kind of crimes?”

Moore wants this conversation to keep going. “What you want to do is find a way to talk about it without being salacious,” she said, emphasising: “That’s not what this is about. These are criminal acts.”