Kate Winslet Said The Film Industry's Regard For Woody Allen And Roman Polanski Is "Disgraceful" And "Unbelievable"

"I can’t turn back the clock. I’m grappling with those regrets."

Kate Winslet has expressed her regret over working with directors Woody Allen and Roman Polanski, saying the film industry's regard for them is "unbelievable" and "disgraceful".

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Speaking to Vanity Fair about her new film, Ammonite, Winslet said the experience made her realise she may not have "taken enough responsibility" for how her characters were represented on screen in the past.

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"It's so loving, so tender, and so beautiful," Winslet said of the relationship between her character and Saoirse Ronan's. "Ammonite has made me really aware of being even more committed to honouring what women want to be saying for themselves in films and how we really want to be portrayed, regardless of sexual orientation."

"Life is fucking short and I'd like to do my best when it comes to setting a decent example to younger women," she added. "We're handing them a pretty fucked up world, so I'd like to do my bit in having some proper integrity."

Winslet went on to question "what the fuck she was doing" making the decision to take roles in projects directed by Polanski and Allen, who she worked with as recently as 2017 in the film Wonder Wheel.

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In 1993, Allen's was taken to court when he was accused by his ex-partner Mia Farrow of sexually abusing their adopted daughter, Dylan. He has repeatedly denied the allegations, including in 2014 after the New York Times published an open letter from Dylan maintaining she was abused and calling Allen "a living testament to the way our society fails the survivors of sexual assault and abuse."

Polanski, who Winslet worked with on Carnage in 2011, was arrested and indicted in 1977 for raping a 13-year-old girl.

"It's unbelievable to me now how those men were held in such high regard, so widely in the film industry and for as long as they were," Winslet told Vanity Fair. "It's fucking disgraceful."

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"I have to take responsibility for the fact that I worked with them both," she went on. "I can’t turn back the clock. I’m grappling with those regrets but what do we have if we aren’t able to just be fucking truthful about all of it?"

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In 2017, Winslet came under fire for publicly defending her decision to work with Allen, telling the New York Times in an interview that she "put [the allegations] to one side."

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"I didn't know Woody and I don't know anything about that family," Winslet said at the time.

She continued: "As the actor in the film, you just have to step away and say, I don't know anything, really, and whether any of it is true or false. Having thought it all through, you put it to one side and just work with the person."

"Woody Allen is an incredible director," she went on. "So is Roman Polanski. I had an extraordinary working experience with both of those men, and that’s the truth."

However only a few months later, during a speech at the London Film Critics' Circle Awards, Winslet spoke about her "bitter regrets" over decisions to work with certain people.

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"I realised that I wouldn't be able to stand here this evening and keep to myself some bitter regrets that I have about poor decisions to work with individuals with whom I wish I had not," she said.

"It has become clear to me that by not saying anything, I might be adding to the anguish of many courageous women and men," she went on. Sexual abuse is a crime. While it rests with the rule of law to pass judgement, it lies with all of us to listen to the smallest of voices and to never stop listening."

You can read Winslet's interview with Vanity Fair in full here.