Actor Geoffrey Rush speaks of family distress amid allegations of inappropriate behaviour
Geoffrey Rush has spoken of his “emotional spiral” amid claims in the Daily Telegraph he had inappropriately touched a fellow cast member during a production of King Lear.
The Oscar winning actor told Sydney’s Federal Court that he was “sick to his stomach”, felt “demonised” and “distraught” as allegations appeared on the front page of the newspaper.
Rush denies all wrong-doing and claims the stories portrayed him as a “pervert” and a “sexual predator”.
The actress at the centre of the complaint was later revealed to be Eryn Jean Norvill who appeared in the play alongside Rush in late 2015 to early 2016.
After outlining his rise to fame and detailing some of his performances during a near 50-year acting career, Rush was asked about the fall out from the stories.
“They have been the worst 11 months of my life,” he said.
In addition to his reputational damage, the actor has also suffered significant financial loss, his counsel Bruce McClintock SC told the court.
McClintock said his client had earned $1.5m in the four months from July 2017 to the end of November, when the Telegraph published its first story. In the 10 months since, he has earned only $44,000.
As he sat in the witness stand and re-read headlines, a poster and stories published by the Daily Telegraph in late 2017, Rush detailed how his life began to unravel in the wake of the allegations.
Remaining calm throughout, he said his wife had first heard rumours that a complaint had been made in early 2017.
But they publicly came to light when the Daily Telegraph published a story on November 30 under the headline ‘King Leer’.
Rush said he was “devastated”.
A front page image of the 67-year-old actor, originally taken to promote the play and featured by the Telegraph to illustrate its story, resembled a police line-up in the way it was used, he said.
“It made a madman from the theatre look like a criminal in reality,” he told the court.
“My son was home, Jane [his wife] was home and I could see how distressed they were,” Rush told the court. “I felt someone had poured lead in my head. It was like this can’t be happening. I was numb.”
He said the subtext of a Telegraph poster promoting the story – “Geoffrey Rush in scandal claims” – implied that a “major depravity” had taken place.
The word scandal, he added, was, in his mind, associated with the downfall of the British Government in the 1960s following a sex scandal which involved the heady combination of defence minister John Profumo, models and the Russians.
“I was sick to my stomach,” he said.
Rush said he withdrew from a production of Twelfth Night in the aftermath of the claims, telling the court he was not in the right “mental or physical state” to perform.
His presence would also detract from the play and the assembled cast, he said.
The actor added that he was not sleeping and had a poor appetite, with the stress also impacting his wife, son and daughter and even close friends.
“I was weakening,” Rush said. “I was distraught at the way the story was running off the rails and didn’t seem to reflect anything I experienced. I felt I was being demonised by an untruth.”
Rush was asked about a follow-up story in the Telegraph on December 1 in which two actors were said to back the “accuser”.
One, former Neighbours actor Meyne Wyatt, had played Edmund in King Lear. The other was Australian actor Brandon McClelland, who did not feature in the play.
“Pardon my french, but I thought ‘who the fuck is Brandon McClelland, he wasn’t even in King Lear,” Rush told the court.
He described Wyatt as a “brave and adventurous young man”.
The story contained claims of “touching”, the first time Rush said he was aware of such a specific allegation.
He told the court he had earlier asked his solicitor, Nicholas Pullen, what constituted ‘inappropriate behaviour’ and was told it covered many things, including such trivialities as bad breath and body odour.
Rush said he first learned that a complaint had been made on November 10 following an enquiry from a journalist at The Australian.
After feeling “disturbed”, he telephoned Sydney Theatre Company executive director Patrick McIntyre who, he told the court, refused to divulge any details, including the identity of the complainant.
After reading the Telegraph stories three weeks later, Rush said: “I was outraged that Mr McIntyre, having told me nothing, had told the Daily Telegraph, and the rest of the world. I couldn’t be told about it, but everyone else could.”
Earlier, the court heard that he Daily Telegraph and its journalist Jonathon Moran set about destroying the reputation of Australian actor Geoffrey Rush in a “desperate” bid to “counter the success” of an exclusive Fairfax story surrounding disgraced TV host Don Burke.
Opening the defamation hearing at Sydney’s Federal Court, McClintock said Moran and the Telegraph were on the hunt for a “Weinstein story”.
McClintock described Rush as a “living national treasure” and a “household name and face” who has brought “pleasure to millions”.
He also had an unblemished reputation.
But since the Daily Telegraph stories the actor was, until he is vindicated, “damaged goods”, McClintock said.
The “smash and destroy” coverage by the Telegraph has had a “devastating effect personally and professionally” on Rush, he added
“His reputation has been smashed,” McClintock said.
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The barrister, who described Moran as a gossip columnist, said the Telegraph had been “guzumped” by Fairfax over the Don Burke story and was desperate to make amends.
“I don’t wish to be rude, but an investigative reporter he isn’t,” McClintock said of Moran. “He was obviously desperate for a story.
“It was clearly not an urgent story but the Daily Telegraph wanted to counter the success of Fairfax and the Don Burke story.”
He noted that Moran will not give evidence during proceedings.
The court heard that Norvill had made an “off the record” complaint to her agent and the company manager of the Sydney Theatre Company but did not want to take it further.
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A statement from the STC to the Daily Telegraph confirmed a complaint had been made, and a later statement made clear it was a complaint made to the STC, not by it. It also emphasised there had been no “conclusion of impropriety”.
Moran had omitted that part of the statement from his stories on December 1, McClintock said, in a deliberate attempt to portray Rush as guilty to its readers.
Both Rush and Norvill are victims of the “incompetence” of the STC and the “malice and dishonesty of the Telegraph”, McClintock told the court.
Earlier, McClintock read passages from emails in 2015 between Rush and Norvill that showed “affection” between the pair.
The case continues.
