Geoffrey Rush says he has been a hermit apart from trips to LA, Italy and UK
HOLLYWOOD star Geoffrey Rush said he has lived a “hermit like existence” for the last year despite taking trips to London, Italy, Los Angeles and the Adelaide Festival.
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HOLLYWOOD star Geoffrey Rush said he has lived a “hermit like existence” for the last year despite taking trips to London, Italy, Los Angeles and the Adelaide Festival.
“It’s not really a hermit like existence, is it Mr Rush?” Asked barrister Tom Blackburn, SC, during cross examination in the actor’s defamation trial against The Daily Telegraph.
“It was a hermit-like existence, generally, for that long period in time,” the 67-year-old actor said.
Mr Blackburn said: “Except for when you went to awards ceremonies and festivals?”
Mr Rush is suing The Daily Telegraph after it reported an actor in King Lear had lodged a complaint with the Sydney Theatre Company over his “inappropriate behaviour”. The actor was later named as Eryn Jean Norvill.
Since the articles were published Mr Rush said he and wife Jane Menelaus “were trapped into a reclusive” existence.
In an affidavit supplied to the court in April Mr Rush’s solicitor Nick Pullen said his client was “virtually housebound.”
Under cross-examination Mr Rush told the court he had spent two weeks in Umbria, Italy, on holiday, eight days in London which included trips to the theatre and to restaurants with friends, a 48-hour round trip to Los Angeles and three days at the Adelaide Festival in March.
Mr Rush said he also went to “the shop and the post office” to buy avocados to have on toast because he knew he “had to have something”.
“Jane would say let me cook you a steak and I said ‘I have no appetite darling, I’ll eat when I’m ready’,” he said.
The Oscar winner denies any wrongdoing and claims two front page articles in the newspaper about the alleged incident during the STC production painted him as a “pervert” and “sexual predator”.
Ms Norvill played Cordelia, the daughter of Mr Rush’s character King Lear, whose “lifeless” body he carried onto the stage. Mr Rush denied intentionally groping her breast on stage during the last scene of the play.
The Hollywood star also denied deliberately tracing his fingers across Ms Norvill’s breast, saying he had wanted to feel the silhouette of her character’s lifeless torso, adding it was “the interior of my palms wanting to feel the loss of her soul”.
“Did a thumb accidentally touch the lower part of her chest? Possibly. I wasn’t monitoring this with detachment,” Mr Rush said.
He said when watching contemporary ballet he never wonders if the dancers are having backstage conversations about inappropriate touching.
“I think we should not be heading in a direction in theatre where we’re being so straightjacketed,” Mr Rush said.
Mr Blackburn said while Mr Rush and Ms Norvill was waiting in the wings for the crucial final scene Mr Rush gently stroked his hand above the line of Ms Norvill’s jeans until she very quietly said “please stop that’.
“I have no recollection of that happening at all,” he said.
Mr Rush also denied director Neil Armfield had told him to make the gesture more paternal because it was becoming “creepy and unclear”.
The newspaper argues the stories published on November 30 and December 1 last year draw on allegations made by Ms Norvill and are true.
The hearing continues.
Rush admits he may have called actor ‘scrumptious’ and ‘yummy’
Geoffrey Rush admitted he may have called King Lear co-star Eryn Jean Norvill “scrumptious” and “yummy” during rehearsals for the play a court heard today.
Mr Rush, 67, was being cross examined in his defamation trial against The Daily Telegraph after it reported an actor in King Lear had lodged a complaint with the Sydney Theatre Company over his “inappropriate behaviour”. The actor was later named as Eryn Jean Norvill.
Tom Blackburn, SC, barrister for The Daily Telegraph asked Mr Rush if he said to Ms Norvill “you’re looking very scrumptious today” during rehearsals.
Mr Rush said: “I don’t recall saying that but I may have said that. I was always in a very chirpy mood … sometimes you have ice breakers with people you don’t know very well. I approached the rehearsals with openness and energy.”
The Pirates of the Caribbean star said he might have called her yummy. “I might have, yes. ‘Yummy’ has a spirit to it.”
In a pre-trial hearing, the court was told that Ms Norvill would give evidence that she was the target of sexual harassment during the King Lear season including an incident during a preview in which Mr Rush ran his hand “down her torso and traced across her right breast”.
In the Federal Court today Mr Rush denied making grunting noises while sticking out his tongue and tracing an hour glass figure in the air around Ms Norvill.
He also denied that was the reason Ms Norvill said “Daaaad” like a grumpy teenager and asked him to stop.
The court was previously given a copy of a text Mr Rush sent to Ms Norvill with a winking emoji with its tongue “panting”.
Mr Blackburn asked the actor: “If someone who is 65 years old sent your daughter a text, saying ‘I’m thinking of you more than is socially appropriate’ with an emoji with its tongue hanging out, Mr Rush would you think that’s appropriate?”
Mr Rush, who has a 25-year-old daughter, said: “I can’t think of any context in which that would happen.”
He said he does not check his daughter’s emails or Facebook.
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