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A growing number of actors are distancing themselves from Woody Allen and his next film, heightening questions about the future of the prolific 82-year-old filmmaker in a Hollywood newly sensitive to allegations of sexual misconduct.
Timothee Chalamet said he will donate his salary for an upcoming Woody Allen film to three charities fighting sexual harassment and abuse: Time's Up, the LGBT Centre in New York and RAINN.
The breakout star of Call Me By Your Name announced on Instagram that he did not want to profit from his work on Allen's A Rainy Day in New York, which wrapped shooting last year.
"I want to be worthy of standing shoulder to shoulder with the brave artists who are fighting for all people to be treated with the respect and dignity they deserve," Chalamet said.
Chalamet is just the latest cast member of an Allen production to express regret or guilt about being professionally associated with the director.
In recent weeks, Rebecca Hall, Mira Sorvino, Ellen Page, David Krumholtz and Griffith Newman have all in some way distanced themselves from Allen or vowed that they would not work with him again.
The rising chorus suggests the road ahead for Allen may be particularly challenging, even for a director whose personal controversies have for decades made him an alternatively beloved and reviled figure in movies.
Financial support for Allen has not previously waned, in part because of the eagerness many stars have for working with a cinematic legend.
But fielding a starry cast may prove increasingly difficult for Allen in a movie industry in the midst of a #MeToo reckoning.
"If I had known then what I know now, I would not have acted in the film," Greta Gerwig, who co-starred in Allen's 2012 comedy To Rome With Love, told The New York Times last week .
"I have not worked for him again, and I will not work for him again.
"Dylan Farrow's two different pieces made me realise that I increased another woman's pain, and I was heartbroken by that realisation."
Long-standing allegations
Ms Farrow, Allen's adopted daughter, said Allen molested her in an attic in 1992 when she was seven.
Allen, who has long denied the allegations, was investigated for the incident but not charged.
Ms Farrow has previously questioned why the #MeToo movement has not ensnarled Allen.
In an op-ed published last month in The Los Angeles Times, she wrote: "Why is it that Harvey Weinstein and other accused celebrities have been cast out by Hollywood, while Allen recently secured a multi-million-dollar distribution deal with Amazon, greenlit by former Amazon Studios executive Roy Price before he was suspended over sexual misconduct allegations?"
Mr Price, the former head of Amazon Studios, resigned in October following an allegation he had sexually harassed television producer Isa Hackett while she was working on the Amazon series The Man in the High Castle.
A Rainy Day in New York is the fourth project for Allen with Amazon, which bet heavily on the filmmaker to help establish its film production arm as a home to auteur filmmakers.
It reportedly spent $80 million to lure Allen into television to make the 2016 series Crisis in Six Scenes.
Amazon also distributed Allen's Cafe Society in 2016 and Wonder Wheel, which opened on December 1.
It has grossed a mere $1.4 million domestically on an estimated budget of $25 million but had more success overseas, grossing $7.8 million.
A Rainy Day in New York, a romantic comedy due out later this year, also stars Selena Gomez, Jude Law, Liev Schreiber and Elle Fanning.
In his statement, Chalamet tellingly noted that due to "contractual obligations" he could not comment on the long-standing allegations against Allen.
The announcement by Chalamet, a favourite Oscar contender for best actor this year, followed a similar one on Friday by his co-star Hall.
She said she was donating her salary from the film to Time's Up, the recently formed initiative to combat gender inequality in the entertainment industry.
"It's a small gesture and not one intended as close to compensation," Hall wrote on Instagram.
Some have continued to publicly support Allen though, including Alec Baldwin.
"Woody Allen was investigated forensically by two states (NY and CT) and no charges were filed," Baldwin said on Twitter.
"The renunciation of him and his work, no doubt, has some purpose. But it's unfair and sad to me.
"I worked with Woody Allen three times and it was one of the privileges of my career."
AP
Topics: sexual-offences, law-crime-and-justice, film-movies, arts-and-entertainment, united-states
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