The actor Ruth Wilson has hit out at the “hypocrisy” of Hollywood for its handling of the #MeToo revelations in an interview with the Guardian.
Wilson, star of Luther, The Affair and His Dark Materials, said it was “extraordinary” to witness Hollywood shift from ignoring the abusive behaviour of leading industry figures such as the now jailed Harvey Weinstein to feigning interest.
The 41-year-old also discussed the pressure on female actors to have cosmetic surgery, labelling treatments including Botox “mad”.
On the #MeToo movement, Wilson said it was “extraordinary … to actually witness Hollywood shift like that”.
She said: “To see the survival instinct. You realise how fickle that industry is. There’s no moral backbone. People were like: ‘We’re going to have a meeting about how badly we’ve behaved and then we’ll all be fine.’ It blew my mind.
“It made me understand a whole swathe of human behaviour. So many people don’t really believe anything – only what makes them money … They’re opportunists. You see that. But it makes you sage about what you want, what’s important.”
Wilson reportedly left The Affair due to the frequency and nature of the sex scenes she had to perform, and friction with the showrunner, Sarah Treem. After leaving the show in 2018, Wilson claimed she was “not allowed” to speak about the reasons behind her departure and subsequent reports claimed she had signed a non-disclosure agreement (NDA).
Treem responded that she had done “everything I could think of to make [Wilson] feel comfortable with these scenes”. She said: “I would never say those things to an actor. That’s not who I am. I am not a manipulative person, and I’ve always been a feminist.”
Asked about the use of NDAs, Wilson said: “I don’t think there should be any NDAs. If there’s a problem, there’s a problem. It needs to be dealt with, not put under NDA so you can’t speak about it.”
In the interview, Wilson says “everyone” around her talks about Botox “and what to fill their face with”. “As an actress, everyone does it. Very few resist. I haven’t done anything – yet. But it’s in my head as like: well, do you decide not to and therefore potentially look older than your peers? Or do you just give in?”
Commenting on an article in the New York Times that people should get Botox in their 20s to stop wrinkles forming, she said: “I mean, are they joking? I find it so … It’s mad! It’s massive violence.”
“In 200 years, they’ll be looking back at images of women now going: ‘What were they doing? What is that? You’re blowing your face and lips up.’ Yet it’s a multibillion-dollar industry. And women are part of that industry, perpetuating this ‘empowerment’.”
