Rebecca Hall said in an interview with The Observer that she does not regret working with Woody Allen despite apologizing once for starring in “A Rainy Day in New York.” Hall has made two movies with Allen: “Vicky Cristina Barcelona” and “Rainy Day,” the latter of which she only filmed on for one day.
Hall came forward in 2018 amid the #MeToo movement to apologize for working with Allen. At the time, Allen’s adopted daughter Dylan Farrow was criticizing Hollywood for continuing to work with Allen despite her allegation that he molested her as a child. Hall admitted that Farrow’s new statements on the matter made her rethink her decision to work with Allen again, a choice she had “quickly said yes” to when it was offered because Allen “gave me one of my first significant roles” in “Vicky Cristina Barcelona” and “I have always been grateful.”
“It was one day in my hometown – easy,” Hall wrote in 2018 about starring in “Rainy Day. “I have, however subsequently realized there is nothing easy about any of this. In the weeks following I have thought very deeply about this decision, and remain conflicted and saddened. I see, not only how complicated this matter is, but that my actions have made another woman feel silenced and dismissed. That is not something that sits easily with me in the current or indeed any moment, and I am profoundly sorry. I regret this decision and wouldn’t make the same one today.”
Hall then donated the salary she earned on “Rainy Day” to the Time’s Up legal defense fund. Several other actors who worked with Allen were speaking up at the time sharing their own regrets over working with him, including Greta Gerwig, Elliot Page, Griffin Newman, David Krumholtz and more.
Now speaking to The Observer, Hall said “I struggle with this one” when asked about her public apology for working with Allen.
“It’s very unlike me to make a public statement about anything,” Hall explained. “I make the stuff, that’s how I am political. I don’t think of myself as an ‘actor-vist’, I’m not that person. And, I kind of regret making that statement, because I don’t think it’s the responsibility of his actors to speak to that situation.”
As reported by The Observer: “She was in a peculiar state – newly pregnant, deeply affected emotionally by Farrow’s allegations and, at the time, working on ‘A Rainy Day in New York,’ directed by Allen. One morning, ‘I was outside, shooting a street scene with Jude Law where, literally, my dialogue was, “You’ve got to stop sleeping with these fucking 15-year-olds.” And that day, the Weinstein scandal breaks. There’s a bank of journalists and paparazzi right there, because Weinstein’s a producer on it, and they’re all listening to me say this.’”
Hall added that she “was in a tangle” at the time in 2018 because every interview she agreed to then revolved around starring in projects with Allen and Weinstein.
“Like, in this moment, it’s the most important thing to believe the women,” Hall said. “Yes, of course, there’s going to be complications and nuances in these stories, but we’re redressing a balance here. So I felt like I wanted to do something definitive [by making an apology]. But it just became, ‘another person denounces Woody Allen and regrets working with him’, which is not what I said actually. I don’t regret working with him. He gave me a great job opportunity and he was kind to me.”
“I don’t talk to him any more, but I don’t think that we should be the ones who are doing judge and jury on this,” Hall concluded, noting that she “wouldn’t say anything” if the same thing happened today. “My policy actually is to be an artist. Don’t come out and state your stuff so much. I don’t think that makes me apathetic or not engaged. I just think it’s my job.”
Head over to The Observer’s website to read more from Hall’s profile.
