Rush’s accuser ‘shamed, belittled’
OSCAR winner Geoffrey Rush “slowly” and “deliberately” ran his fingers over his young costar’s right breast during rehearsals for a play, a court has heard.
Actor Eryn Jean Norvill said she also felt “belittled, embarrassed” and “shamed” after Mr Rush gestured groping her breasts while bulging his eyes and licking his lips during rehearsals for a Sydney production of King Lear.
But the 34-year-old said she received no support from director Neil Armfield nor her fellow actors, as the Hollywood star’s sexual gestures became a regular occurrence.
“I was looking at a room that was complicit,” Ms Norvill told the Federal Court in Sydney. “My director didn’t seem to have a problem with it. I felt quashed in my ability to find allies.”
Mr Rush, 67, is suing The Daily Telegraph newspaper over a series of articles in late 2017 that reported a young actor had lodged a complaint with the Sydney Theatre Company over his alleged “inappropriate behaviour”.
That actor was later named as Ms Norvill, who played Mr Rush’s daughter Cordelia in the production.
Ms Norvill said yesterday she felt “trapped” as he stroked her breast while she played a “lifeless body” on stage.
“I believed that he’d done it deliberately,” she said. “The touch was different to what I’d witnessed previously. It was slow and light and pressured … it wasn’t an accident.”
But Ms Norvill felt she couldn’t complain about Mr Rush’s behaviour or it would be catastrophic for the show. She said she was the bottom rung of the production’s hierarchy while the Pirates of the Caribbean star was “definitely at the top”.
“His power was intimidating,” she said.
“I was not a priority. I wasn’t the one putting the bums on seats … I was very frightened and didn’t want to risk the performance.”
I WAS LOOKING AT A ROOM THAT WAS COMPLICIT ... SO I FELT QUASHED IN TERMS OF MY ABILITY TO FIND ALLIES. ERYN JEAN NORVILL
She said he also targeted other women in the production and the behaviour became “normalised” in the rehearsal room.
Mr Rush sat in court with wife Jane Menelaus to listen to the evidence. Ms Norvill’s parents sat behind him.
Ms Norvill said she felt “panicked” when she received a text message from Mr Rush containing an emoji of a face with its tongue hanging out, “because I believed Geoffrey to be unsafe”.
Ms Norvill added that “in no way” during a series of punfilled emails between her and Mr Rush “am I inviting to be sexually harassed”.