Thandie Newton talks enduring sexual abuse, racism in Hollywood
In a wide-ranging interview with Vulture, "Westworld" star Thandie Newton spoke about Hollywood and the abuses she said she suffered.
The actress, 47, said her experiences with sexual abuse in the industry and the way she's spoken out about the mistreatment led her to "challenge" people and prevented her from working with others.
She said that the treatment she's suffered in Hollywood is evidence that "you can dismiss a Black person." "If you’re a young Black girl and you get raped, in the film business, no one’s going to f------ care," she said. "You can tell whoever the f--- you want, and they’ll call it an affair. Until people start taking this seriously, I can’t fully heal."
"There are so many problems to feeling disenfranchised. But I keep finding myself alone," she added. "There is now an appetite for listening to women, but there’s women and then, right at the bottom of the pile, is women of color."
Newton said that she will eventually share the names of those she believes have taken advantage of her. "I've got my little black book, which will be published on my deathbed....I'm not doing it when I'm alive," she said. "I don't want to deal with all the fallout and everyone getting their side of the story. There is no side of the story when you're sexually abused. You give that up."
"Careful what you do, everybody...Because you might find yourself f------ over a little brown girl at the beginning of a career, when no one knows who she is and no one gives a f---. She might turn out to be Thandie Newton," the actress said.
One story pertaining to the mistreatment she said she endured was on her decision to pass on the 2000 "Charlie's Angels" reboot.
"[T]he director said to me, 'The first shot...You're going to think it's like yellow lines down a road, and you pull back and you realize it's the stitching, because the denim is so tight on your a-- to look like tarmac.' I was like, 'Oh, I don't think we’re going to go down this road together,'" Newton said in the interview.
