It’s a time of raised voices and razed bridges in Hollywood, as women speak out about a persistent culture of sexism that’s led to reduced wages and opportunities for female performers at its most mild, and outright sexual assault and silencing of wounded voices at its worst. Among the many actresses calling for a sea-change in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein scandal—and the dozens of tributary scandals that have cropped up in its wake—Jessica Chastain has been one of the most vocal, calling out alleged abusers like Weinstein, Kevin Spacey, and Bryan Singer on Twitter, regardless of the consequences.
Earlier this week, though, Chastain revealed at least one way that she’s faced backlash for her commitment to speaking out, recounting a story on The Graham Norton Show about a “well-known male actor” telling her she needed to “calm down” about all this Weinstein stuff. Chastain didn’t go into detail about the identity of the man in question—or suggest that this interaction was anything but an unpleasant blip compared with some of the harassment that she’s been decrying over the last few months—but nevertheless told Norton that, “I found that heartbreaking, and can only think he didn’t understand the movement that was happening.”
