Kate Winslet regrets working with Woody Allen and Roman Polanski: 'What the f— was I doing?'
Tony Barson/FilmMagic; Bertrand Rindoff Petroff/Getty Images; Andreas Rentz/Getty Images
Oscar-winning actress Kate Winslet says she now regrets working with the controversial filmmakers Woody Allen and Roman Polanski.
In a new interview with Vanity Fair, Winslet, 44, discussed how she has been re-evaluating many of her career choices at this stage of her life, including some of the directors she's collaborated with. "It's like, what the f— was I doing working with Woody Allen and Roman Polanski?" she said. "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. It's f—ing disgraceful."
Winslet didn't let herself off the hook for her past choices. "I have to take responsibility for the fact that I worked with them both," she said. "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 f—ing truthful about all of it?"
Winslet appeared in Polanski's 2011 film Carnage, an adaptation of the hit Broadway play God of Carnage. She worked with Allen more recently, on 2017's Wonder Wheel, which drew attention at the time of release as the #MeToo movement was gaining steam.
Allen has been the subject of public scrutiny for decades, first for his marriage to Soon-Yi Previn, the adopted daughter of his former partner Mia Farrow. In 1993, he was accused of abusing his adopted daughter Dylan Farrow. She publicly addressed the allegations for the first time in a 2014 open letter published in the New York Times, in which she accused Allen of sexually assaulting her when she was 7. Allen has long denied the allegations.
Allegations against Polanski stretch back further. In March 1977, he was arrested and charged with raping then-13-year-old Samantha Geimer. He was indicted on six criminal charges, including sodomy, sex with a minor, and rape by use of drugs. He pleaded guilty to only one of the charges: unlawful sexual intercourse. But Polanski fled to Europe in 1978 and has not returned to the United States since.
Since 2010, four additional women have accused Polanski of sexually assaulting them while they were minors. He has denied all such charges. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences voted to expel him from its ranks in 2018.
In a 2017 New York Times interview, Winslet was asked about the allegations against Allen and said, "Of course one thinks about it. But at the same time, I didn't know Woody and I don't know anything about that family. 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. So is Roman Polanski. I had an extraordinary working experience with both of those men, and that's the truth."
Months later, the actress expressed "bitter regrets" over her decisions to work with certain Hollywood "men of power" during a speech at the London Critics' Circle film awards, though she did not name names.
Representatives for Winslet, Polanski, and Allen did not immediately respond to EW's request for further comment.
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