Actresses gave sex to get roles – McKellen
BRITISH stage and screen star Sir Ian McKellen has implied women are partly responsible for the sexual misconduct scandal engulfing Hollywood.
In a talk at the Oxford Union, Sir Ian said actresses in the 1960s pitching for work would write DRR – director’s rights respected – on their headshots as a coded offer of sex for parts.
The 78-year-old Lord of the Rings star was responding to a request from the packed audience on December 4 for his take on the Harvey Weinstein scandal.
“People must be called out and it’s sometimes very difficult for victims to do that,” he told the audience.
“I hope we’re going through a period that will help to eradicate it altogether. But from my own experience, when I was starting acting in the early ’60s, the director of the theatre I was working at showed me some photographs he got from women who were wanting jobs ... some of them had at the bottom of their photograph ‘DRR’ – director’s rights respected. In other words, if you give me a job, you can have sex with me.
“That was commonplace from people who proposed that they should be a victim. Madness. People have taken advantage of that and encouraged it and it absolutely will not do.”
Despite his support for victims coming forward, the six-time Olivier Award winner admitted he was worried about the impact of wrongful accusations.
“I assume nothing but good will come out of these revelations, even though some people get wrongly accused – there’s that side of it as well,” he said.
Sir Ian worked with Kevin Spacey in 2004 when Spacey was artistic director at the Old Vic in London.
Sir Ian said the timing of Spacey’s “coming out” as gay was “reprehensible because it linked alleged underage sex with a declaration of sexuality”.