Actor Eryn Jean Norvill has described the moment Geoffrey Rush allegedly traced his hand across her breast as they acted in King Lear in front of a captive audience, and said she didn't speak out about his behaviour because his star power was "intimidating".
Norvill, a key witness in the high profile defamation case brought by Rush against a Sydney newspaper, testified for most of the day on Tuesday as she spoke publicly about the allegations for the first time.
Rush is suing the publishers of Sydney newspaper The Daily Telegraph and journalist Jonathon Moran, after they published allegations in November 2017 that he had been accused of behaving inappropriately towards a female cast member during a 2015–16 Sydney Theatre Company (STC) production of King Lear.
Rush, 67, has strenuously denied the allegations. He claims publisher Nationwide News defamed him in two articles and a poster by painting him as a pervert and a sexual predator who committed sexual assault while acting in King Lear, and by suggesting his conduct was so serious that the STC pledged to never work with him again.
Nationwide News has filed a defence of truth based on a statement from Norvill, who played the role of King Lear's daughter Cordelia in the production. She allegedly complained to the STC in April 2016 about Rush’s inappropriate behaviour towards her, but was not named in the articles.
Norvill told a packed courtroom that during one of the preview performances, Rush diverged from the rehearsed actions in the central scene of the play where he, as King Lear, is grieving the dead body of Cordelia.
Usually, Norvill said, Rush would touch her face and use his right hand to stroke down her arm and then hold her hand.
But, she said, on one preview night: "Geoffrey placed his hand on my face and then his other hand touched under my armpit, or just near my armpit, and stroked down my, across the side of my right breast and my hip."
Demonstrating the motion on the witness stand, Norvill said Rush’s fingers had reached “halfway” up her breast.
"The touch was different to what I’d experienced previously," she said. "It wasn’t a light touch … it wasn’t an accident. It couldn’t have been an accident. It was slow and pressured."
During the rehearsal period, Rush regularly made lewd gestures towards her and said she looked “yummy” and “scrumptious”, Norvill told the court.
In one incident, she said, they were rehearsing the grieving scene and she was lying on her back on the floor with her eyes closed as Rush delivered his monologue, when she heard him stop talking.
"I remembered hearing titters of laughter, murmuring of responses around the rehearsal room,” Norvill said.
"I opened my eyes and Geoffrey was kneeling over me and he had both of his hands above my torso and he was gesturing stroking up and down my torso and gesturing groping or cupping above my breasts. He was looking up to the front of the room and kind of raising his eyebrows and bulging his eyes and smiling and licking his lips. I heard [director Neil Armfield] say 'Geoffrey stop that'."
Asked why she didn’t talk to anyone about these incidents, Norvill said she was “at the bottom of the rung in terms of hierarchy, and Geoffrey was definitely at the top”.
"I have to be honest and say his power was intimidating," she said. "And we were also playing father and daughter. I felt if I was to speak or reprimand the behaviour I might jeopardise — I would jeopardise that relationship.
"Everyone else [in the rehearsal room] didn’t seem to have a problem about it. I was looking at a room that was complicit. My director didn’t seem to have a problem with it. I felt quashed in terms of my ability to find allies.
"And again, Geoffrey was … I wanted him to be my mentor. I was able to try and make a joke out of it. I’d say 'Dad, oh dad don’t. Dad.' Reminding him that I was playing his daughter and it really wasn’t appropriate to be belittling me like that, and it wasn’t funny."
Norvill said she felt "humiliated" during a group interview about the play when Rush told a journalist he had a "stage door Johnny crush" on her.
"[I felt] put on the spot given again we were being interviewed in a professional context. It made me feel uncomfortable and disrespected."
Norvill was questioned extensively under cross-examination from Rush's barrister Bruce McClintock SC about texts and emails she had exchanged with Rush between 2014 and up until the production.
The court heard that the pair had exchanged messages over Whatsapp, Viber and text between 2014 and the time of the King Lear production, in which they gave each other wordplay nicknames. "I think it spurred from the fact we enjoyed language," Norvill said.
The nicknames Norvill called Rush included "Jerrycan Headrush", "Generous DeGush" and "Galápagos Lusty Thrust", the court heard.
"I suppose you’ll tell your honour there’s nothing sexual about that?" McClintock said of the "Galápagos Lusty Thrust" nickname.
"It could be perceived as intellectually flirtatious," Norvill said.
"What about sexually flirtatious?" asked Justice Michael Wigney.
"No. I was not sexually interested in Geoffrey Rush. He has a wife. And he was my friend," Norvill said. She added, quietly, "This is disgusting".
Rush was questioned on the stand last week about a text he sent to Norvill in June 2016 which included the line "I was thinking of you, as I do, more than is socially appropriate" followed by an winking emoji face with its tongue sticking out.
Norvill did not reply to the text and told the court today it made her feel "bewildered" and "panicked".
McClintock asked Norvill if it was fair to say Rush was just doing the same thing Norvill had been doing when she sent him texts including wordplay versions of his name between 2014 and the play.
"I hadn’t spent several months sexually harassing him," she replied.
She was also questioned over an email she sent to Rush on January 7, 2016, shortly before the closing night of King Lear on January 9.
Rush had forwarded to Norvill a complimentary email about King Lear from playwright Andrew Bovell, saying "Hi darling Eedge. FYI I thought you should read this from writer Andrew Bovell. xo 'Daaad'"
Norvill replied saying "That was wonderful. Thanks for sending it through Dearest Daddy DeGush. xoxo".
Earlier on Tuesday, Norvill said she had sent a "short, polite, concise" email reply to Rush because she was in "survival mode" and wanted to get to the end of the show.
"I was very frightened. Didn’t want to risk the performance. I guess I chose to put Geoffrey’s comfortability above my own ... I just thought I could keep going. I’d come this far. I felt trapped by my own silence, I guess."
She agreed under cross-examination that the email sounded affectionate, but said "I wanted him to think that everything was normal" because she was worried about creating tension at the tail-end of the play.
She told the court she couldn't have just written "Dear Geoffrey, thank you, Eryn Jean" because the nature of her emails to Rush were embellished. "I wrote in poetry to him," she said.
"[It's] not the kind of email someone in your position would send, is it Miss Norvill?" asked McClintock.
"Absolutely someone who was in my position sent it, because I sent it," she replied.
Norvill said "I 100% disagree with that" when McClintock suggested she was lying about having ever been sexually harassed by Rush.
When he asked if it was true there was "nothing stopping" Norvill raising any issues with Rush or Armfield during the production, she said "There absolutely was."
"Neil was Geoffrey’s friend of 30 years. They’ve done so many productions together," Norvill said. "I believed at the time that Neil would always defend Geoffrey."
Prior to appearing together in King Lear, Norvill said she had looked up to Rush as a role model and thought of him as a friend. He wrote her a reference for a visa application to work in the United States in 2014.
Norvill said she was delighted when she was cast in King Lear and thought it would be an "extraordinary experience" to work alongside Rush and Robyn Nevin, and also to be directed by Neil Armfield, who she said she was "in awe of from afar".
Earlier on Tuesday, the Telegraph launched a shock mid-trial bid to file an amended defence in the defamation case.
Nationwide News barrister Tom Blackburn SC told the court his clients had an application to amend the defence.
The application will be heard on Wednesday, and has had a suppression order placed on it for the time being. Rush's lawyers will argue that it be heard in closed court.
Rush's barrister in the defamation trial, Bruce McClintock SC, said a different barrister – Kieran Smark SC – would represent the actor on the defence application.
McClintock said the defence application was not related to the current witnesses lined up to testify for Nationwide News.
"This matter has nothing to do with the witnesses who are slated to give evidence," McClintock said.
The trial continues.