Michelle Dockery’s ‘Uncomfortable’ Harvey Weinstein Encounter: ‘I’d Heard the Rumors’

Michelle Dockery has a Harvey Weinstein story of her own, one that the “Downton Abbey” star says took place midway through her tenure on the celebrated BBC drama. Though the former Lady Mary clarifies in a Guardian interview that “it was a very brief meeting” during which “nothing much happened,” she still remembers “feeling un-com-fort-able.”

Dockery says that, since the first few stories about Weinstein broke, sexual harassment has been “the only conversation in town. Oh yeah, everyone’s talking about it. And I have huge admiration for those women who have come forward.” Asked whether she was surprised by any of the allegations, her response is unequivocal: “No. I’d heard the rumours.”

Scores of women have accused Weinstein of sexual harassment, assault, and rape in recent weeks; in response, he has been fired from the Weinstein Company, expelled from the Academy, and received a lifetime ban from the Producers Guild of America. “It feels like the floodgates have opened, and I think that the casting-couch system — well, the couch should be burned,” Dockery adds. “I just think something has to change. And this is the start of it.”