The cost of telling a #MeToo story in Australia

Yael Stone is scared. We are in New York City, at a ramen place near her apartment in Astoria, Queens, and Stone, who stars in “Orange Is the New Black,” has barely touched her soup. She tells me she hasn’t been sleeping for the better part of a year. It’s not just her six-month-old baby who’s keeping her up, but her decision to come forward for the first time and speak to me about her experiences with Geoffrey Rush, one of the most powerful actors in her native Australia. Most women who go public with #MeToo stories are fearful for obvious reasons. There is the pain of reliving traumatic experiences. There is the rage of not being believed. And there is sometimes the discomfort of admitting, as Stone readily does, that she didn’t say “no” and at times even encouraged some of his behaviour.

She did so, she says, out of fear of offending a mentor and friend. But Stone isn’t just afraid of the emotional consequences of talking about her allegations against Rush, her onetime hero, including that he danced naked in front of her in their dressing room, used a mirror to watch her while she showered and sent her occasionally erotic text messages while she was 25 years old and starring opposite Rush, then 59, on stage in “The Diary of a Madman” in 2010 and 2011. She is worried that Australia’s defamation laws will drag her into a legal and financial quagmire.

In the United States, the legal burden is on the person who claims to have been defamed: He or she must prove that the allegations are false. In Australia, in the area of libel law, it’s the opposite. The burden is on the publisher to prove that the allegations against the plaintiff are true. In addition, public figures who sue for libel in the United States must prove that the publisher acted with reckless disregard of the truth, even if the statements prove false. Rush said in a statement that Stone’s allegations “are incorrect and in some instances have been taken completely out of context.” But, he added, “clearly Yael has been upset on occasion by the spirited enthusiasm I generally bring to my work. I sincerely and deeply regret if I have caused her any distress. This, most certainly, has never been my intention.”

“I know I have truth on my side,” Stone told me during a phone call last week. And yet, “you can see in all of my communications with you that there’s an element of terror.” The same power dynamics present in #MeToo stories, she said, “are reflected in a legal system that favours the person with a good deal more money and a good deal more influence and power.” Australia’s defamation laws help explain why the #MeToo movement, while managing to take down some of the most powerful men in the entertainment and media industry in the United States, has not taken off there. “Australia is the only Western democracy without an explicit constitutional protection for freedom of speech,” Matt Collins, a defamation lawyer and the president of the Victorian Bar, told me.

“People say that Sydney is the libel capital of the world,” he added. The upshot: Not only is it easier for a plaintiff to win a defamation suit in Australia, but people are far less likely to blow the whistle on misconduct, knowing what the legal (and therefore financial) consequences might be. Indeed, if a law firm had not volunteered to represent Stone pro bono, she said, there is no way she would have been able to come forward. But that financial support goes only so far. Crucially, if the actress is sued and loses, she will be personally responsible for the damages. That Stone is willing to take such a risk indicates how strongly she feels about the matter.

“I think the fact that she’s speaking about this now is incredibly courageous,” said Brenna Hobson, who was the general manager of the company that produced “Diary of a Madman” and has known Rush for more than two decades. “The use of defamation cases against women with sexual harassment complaints is having a huge chilling effect,” said Kate Jenkins, the Australian government’s sex discrimination commissioner.

“Women I speak to all over the country are absolutely adamant that they cannot complain because it risks absolutely everything for them.” An Australian filmmaker named Sophie Mathisen put it more bluntly: “The question in our current context is not, Do you want to come forward and speak on behalf of other women? The question is, Do you want to come forward and set yourself on fire publicly?”

Woman on fire

For the past year in Australia, the particular woman on fire has been an actress named Eryn Jean Norvill — someone who never wanted to come forward at all. In late 2017, two front-page articles in The Daily Telegraph reported on Rush’s “inappropriate behaviour” during a 2015-16 production of “King Lear” by the Sydney Theatre Company. The paper, which memorably dubbed Rush “King Leer,” didn’t name the young actress who claimed he had harassed her. Rush adamantly denied the allegation and accused the paper of making “false, pejorative and demeaning claims.” He sued the publisher, Rupert Murdoch’s Nationwide News, and the articles were removed from the paper’s website.

When Nationwide News submitted its defense, it identified the actress as Norvill, who played Cordelia opposite Rush, and her name became a matter of public record. And so for the past several months, Norvill has been in the headlines as a leading witness in the case, despite the fact that she had complained to the theater company about Rush’s behavior informally and confidentially. “What mattered to The Daily Telegraph here was their front page. She didn’t matter,” David Marr, a journalist for The Guardian, told me. Still, we have learned much from Norvill’s testimony.

She said that she felt variously “trapped,” “frightened,”“shocked” and “confused” during the play’s run. She claimed Rush “deliberately” touched her breast onstage, sent her suggestive text messages, called her “yummy” and more. “I was at the bottom of the rung in terms of hierarchy and Geoffrey was definitely at the top,” she told the court. “I wanted to be a part of his world and we were also playing father and daughter. I felt as though if I was to speak or reprimand his behaviour, I would jeopardise the relationship, that tenderness, the closeness that is needed in those two roles.” “I had the least power,” she said. “What was I supposed to do?”

Losing friends

Last month, nearly a year since Rush filed suit against Nationwide News, the court finished hearing arguments in the defamation case. The judge is supposed to deliver his decision in the new year. Back when the case began, Stone said she “swore I would never come forward. My intention was to keep it private.” Instead of going public, Stone wrote the actor an email on December 11, 2017. Subject line: “Challenging times.” The email is self-aware and generous. “I’m sure that this moment is extremely challenging and my thoughts these last few weeks have come to you many times.

I hope you are OK. I worry about you, about Jane and the kids,” it begins, and then goes on to tell him that she was made uncomfortable by him during the play. “In the name of years of friendship I wanted to share with you what I have always been afraid to say,” she wrote. “I hope it’s possible for you to receive this in the spirit that it is meant. With a view towards healing.”

She never heard back

Now, she said, “I feel a responsibility to speak, but I know it will cost me friendships.” She hates the idea of hurting a mentor, someone who even helped her get a visa to work in the United States by writing a letter on her behalf. “If Geoffrey had written back and said I’m sorry and offered to work with me to inspire positive change in our industry, it may have transformed both of our lives for the better,” she said. “I despair that I am now in this situation.” And yet, Stone adds, “I do believe it’s a matter of significance to the public.”

“I also understand it might be confusing and look strange that I maintained a friendship with someone for so long who treated me in a way that made me feel uncomfortable. But there is the reality of professional influence and the reality of a complicated friendship, which ultimately was corroded by a sexual dynamic. But it was still a friendship.” Stone remains sympathetic to Rush, in a way. “The current system is built around the very famous and talented such that there is a lot of yes. There is not a lot of no. And that can encourage certain behaviours and that can happen incrementally over time to the point where a person may have not heard the word no in a long time. And it might not be their fault,” she said.

“We need compassion for that confusion.” Again and again, she returned in our conversations to the themes of compassion and change. “The possibility of redemption must always be on the table,” she said. “Not all #MeToo stories are the same. Each dynamic is different. For some, a criminal process is essential. In my case, I’m not interested in punishment. I am looking to change my industry and to work towards healing and growth.” That healing, however, is only possible when the truth is recognised — when inappropriate behaviour is not waved away because the rehearsal room is somehow unique as a “place of play and experiment,” as the director, Armfield, said on Australia’s “Q and A” television programme in October.

Some things are straightforward

“I’ve been in that particular dressing room in Sydney on many occasions with many wonderfully talented actors and many wonderfully talented clowns,” Stone told me. “And people have made me belly laugh till I couldn’t breathe.”