Thandie Newton has revealed she was sexually abused on the casting couch as a teenager.
The 40-year-old British actress said she is still scarred from the “horrific” incidents that started when she was just 16 years old.
In a candid interview with CNN International, Thandie confirmed she was “abused” at 16, but said the worst incident happened two years later.
“It was a screen test,” she said. “There were two other people in the room — the director and the casting director, who was a woman.
“The director asked me to sit with my legs apart — the camera was positioned where it could see up my skirt — to put my leg over the arm of the chair.
“Before I started my dialogue, [I was told to] think about the character I was supposed to be having the dialogue with and how it felt to be made love to by this person.
“I’m 18 years old, you know, and I’m thinking this is, obviously normal. I thought I was in a protected environment, that there were boundaries.”
Three years later, Thandie discovered the director had played the video of her at parties.
“It turned out the director used to show that video late at night to interested parties at his house — a video of me touching myself with a camera up my skirt.”
Thandie has starred in film and TV favourites, including E.R., Crash, Mission: Impossible II and For Colored Girls.
She has two daughters, Ripley, 12, and Nico, eight, with her film producer husband Oliver Parker.
She said she had decided to speak out about her abuse as part of One Billion Rising, an international campaign to end violence against women.
