Casey Affleck gave an uncomfortable interview about #MeToo movement

Casey
Affleck
YouTube/AssociatedPress

• Casey Affleck gave an interview to the Associated Press
  in which he publicly addressed for the first time the
  allegations of sexual misconduct raised against him by two
  women in a 2010 civil lawsuit, regarding his alleged
  behavior on the set of his 2010 film, “I’m Still
  Here.”
• 
  Affleck settled the suits for an undisclosed
  amount in 2010, and the allegations resurfaced when he was
  nominated for (and subsequently won) the Oscar for best actor
  in 2017 for his performance in “Manchester by the
  Sea.”
  
• In the interview, Affleck said that the fact that he
  had been “involved in a conflict that resulted in a
  lawsuit is something that I really regret,” before
  giving an indirect admission about how he had conducted an
  “unprofessional environment” on the set of the film.

Casey Affleck gave an uncomfortable interview to the Associated
Press in which he addressed the #MeToo movement in relation to
the civil lawsuit he settled in 2010 that included allegations of
sexual misconduct.

Affleck apologized and said he had some culpability in the
situation, but stopped short of admitting to the sexual
harassment he was accused of.

The interviewer, Lindsay Barr, asked Affleck pointedly about
whether the rise of the #MeToo and Time’s Up movements had
changed his perspective of his alleged misconduct on the set of
his 2010 film “I’m Still Here,” where two women accused Affleck
of sexual harassment. 

According to the
complaints filed in 2010, one woman alleged that Affleck
crawled into bed with her without her consent while she was
sleeping, while another woman alleged that Affleck pressured
her to stay in his hotel room and “violently grabbed [her] arm in
an effort to intimidate her into staying” when she refused. The
women
 also said that Affleck was verbally
abusive and instructed a male crew member to expose himself to
one of them. 

Affleck settled the suits for an undisclosed amount in
2010, and the allegations
resurfaced when he was nominated  for (and subsequently
won) the Oscar for best actor in 2017 for his performance in
“Manchester by the Sea.”

In the interview, Affleck said that the fact that he had
been “involved in a conflict that resulted in a lawsuit is
something that I really regret,” and that he wished he “had found
a way to resolve things in a different way,” before giving an
indirect admission about how he had conducted an “unprofessional
environment” on the set:

“I was a boss. I was one of the producers on the set. This
movie was (shot in 2008, 2009) and I was one of the producers.
And it was a crazy mockumentary, (a) very unconventional movie.
The cast was the crew and the crew was kind of the cast and it
was an unprofessional environment and, you know, the buck had to
stop with me being one of the producers and I have to accept
responsibility for that and that was a mistake. And I contributed
to that unprofessional environment and I tolerated that kind of
behavior from other people and I wish that I hadn’t. And I regret
a lot of that. I really did not know what I was responsible for
as the boss. I don’t even know if I thought of myself as the
boss. But I behaved in a way and allowed others to behave in a
way that was really unprofessional. And I’m sorry.”

Watch the interview below: