I mean literally, people still say, ‘There’s someone else who could take this position, if you’re not happy’, that kind of shit. “Even though people know they can speak out now, there is still the fear of losing their job. I was disgusted,” she says, and she is pragmatic about the continuing need to challenge silencing and abuses of power. Newton and Evan Rachel Wood now earn the same as their male counterparts, setting a precedent in the industry that Newton wants to see normalised. Me Too, the phrase coined by activist Tarana Burke in 2006, became a hashtag storm that would morph into one of the largest social uprisings in modern history, defying structures of inequity and leading to such incredible things as a woman and a man earning exactly the same amount of money for exactly the same amount of work on-set, as recently occurred at HBO among the Westworld cast. I was basically waiting for someone to come along and say, ‘Well, what shall we do about this?’’’Īnd they did, in droves, the women. I was so distraught and appalled that a director had abused a young actress, and that it was happening elsewhere, minors getting abused and how f**ked up it was. “There’s a moment where the ghost of me changed, you know,” she says thoughtfully, zoning back in time, eyes hardened, “and it was then, it was 16.
Speaking out was a reflex, a reach for what had been lost and some justice to cushion the void. Long before #metoo and Time’s Up, she was challenging the great wall of silence and enablement surrounding the high crimes and misdemeanours of the entertainment moguls, the Weinsteins and Epsteins, the Cosbys and Kellys, while meeting angry rebuff and gaslighting along the way, at one point terminating a contract with a publicist who begged her to stop talking about being sexually abused because it was “not good for your reputation”. Newton has been a staunch and persistent whistle-blower on the subject of sexual violence and harassment, in Hollywood and beyond, for decades. Now, with Hollywood knocking more loudly than ever, it seems likely that we will see her ascend to middle-age thespian darlinghood, like a Helen Mirren or Regina King, starlit in maturity. When offered the Westworld role in 2014 Newton was close to retiring from acting, having just had her last baby and quit her role in the Canadian police drama Rogue because of mistreatment, and was turning her attention to writing. This year also sees the release of sci-fi romance Reminiscence, the directorial debut of Westworld co-creator Lisa Joy, in which she stars with Hugh Jackman, and the completion of the timely neo-Western God’s Country. In other parts of the house are her children – Booker, seven, Nico, 16, and Ripley, 20, whose girlfriend is staying with them during lockdown – and her husband of 23 years, the screenwriter and director Ol Parker, who pops into the room occasionally to bring her a drink or remind her about a meeting – she’s in discussions about adapting the story of a black-versus-white shoot-out in 1940s Cornwall between American soldiers, and is due back on set for the forthcoming CIA thriller All the Old Knives. I’m not going to speak your story or say your words if I don’t feel they could’ve come from me.” Wherever I position myself now, I don’t want to be part of the problem, I want to be part of the solution. “I can tell when people haven’t watched Westworld because they just think I’m being naked and sexy in it,” Newton says.
#THANDIWE NEWTON ANDROID#
Her roles have been varied and cross-genre – among her favourites is Olanna in 2013’s Half of a Yellow Sun – spanning three decades and gradually becoming aligned with her political activism, culminating in her Emmy-winning and Golden Globe-nominated performance as the android brothel-madam Maeve Millay in the HBO hit sci-fi series Westworld, this year shooting its fourth season. Despite these achievements she has never quite received the glory she deserves as a British national treasure and screen icon that coy and elfin face, the dignified grace and the remarkable versatility of her talent, this is a career both long-standing and long undervalued.
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