Geoffrey Rush lawyer accuses actress of telling ‘lies’

A LAWYER for Geoffrey Rush today accused the young actress who complained about the Hollywood star’s behaviour of “making up” her evidence.

Geoffrey Rush’s lawyer has accused the young actress who raised sexual harassment allegations against him of “making it up”.

The “extravagant” claims about Ms Norvill’s evidence were later described as “frankly incorrect” by the barrister for The Daily Telegraph.

Actor Geoffrey Rush, who is suing The Daily Telegraph for defamation after it reported his co-star in a Sydney Theatre Company production of King Lear lodged a complaint with the STC over Mr Rush’s “inappropriate behaviour”. Picture: Dylan Robinson

The Hollywood actor is suing the newspaper over a series of 2017 articles which reported that his King Lear co-star had lodged a complaint with the Sydney Theatre Company over alleged “inappropriate behaviour.”

The actress was later named as Eryn Jean Norvill. In her closing submission Mr Rush’s barrister claimed the actress’s “alleged distress” was fabricated and self-serving.

“She told a lot of lies to your honour,” Sue Chrysanthou told Justice Michael Wigney in her closing address.

Ms Chrysanthou said Ms Norvill’s claims must be weighed against “the sea of absent witnesses” and her own evidence which was “rife with contradictions, inconsistencies and recent inventions.”

“Ms Norvill’s evidence needs to be weighed against common sense,” she said.

The newspaper’s lawyer Tom Blackburn SC had told the judge he would have to decide who was telling the truth - Mr Rush or Ms Norvill.

Actress Eryn Jean Norvill. Picture: AAP Image/Joel Carrett

Mr Blackburn in his closing address described Ms Norvill as an honest witness who had nothing to to gain from coming forward with her allegations.

Ms Norvill played Mr Rush’s daughter Cordelia in the production and said she felt “trapped” as he “slowly” and “deliberately” ran his fingers over her right breast as she played dead on the stage.

Ms Chrysanthou claimed the breast touch did not occur. “There was no gratuitous action. No inappropriate conduct. It is just unimaginable that Mr Rush would have engaged in such conduct and take the risk that the audience would have seen it,” she said.

Earlier Mr Blackburn said Ms Norvill had no motive to tell the “pack of disgusting lies” that Mr Rush’s legal team had accused her of.

“She desperately wanted to stay out of the limelight,” he said.

“She was just concerned it wouldn’t happen to anybody else.”

Ms Norvill, 34, earlier told the court she didn’t speak up against the 67-year-old Oscar winner because he was at the top of the hierarchy, but his lawyer said there was no power imbalance.

“She wasn’t an inexperienced novice. She wasn’t a baby. She was in her thirties,” Ms Chrysanthou said.

Ms Norvill said her fellow cast members had seen Mr Rush’s groping gestures when she arrived in the rehearsal room and many told him to “stop it”.

Ms Chrysanthou said: “Not only is her evidence that everyone saw it, it was so obvious to everyone that they were commenting about it. It can’t be true.”

Justice Wigney said: “Well it can’t be true unless Mr Armfield, Ms Nevin and Ms Buday and Mr Rush are lying.”

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Ms Chrysanthou said Ms Norvill had “thrown a whole lot of people under the bus” by saying her co-stars were complicit in not condemning Mr Rush’s behaviour.

“Five weeks every day. Licking his lips, raising his eyebrows, bulging out his eyes and growling, making hourglass shapes with his hands… it sounds like a ridiculous silent film,” she said.

“Except we wouldn’t hear ‘scrumptious’ and ‘yummy’,” Justice Wigney said.

Ms Chrysanthou said Ms Norvill “made up” evidence in the witness box including her discomfort when Mr Rush stood too close to her before the final bow. “That’s the best lie she could come up with at that point,” she said.

Mr Rush denies any wrongdoing and claims two front page articles in the newspaper about the alleged incident painted him as a “pervert” and “sexual predator”.

The newspaper argues the stories published on November 30 and December 1 last year draw on allegations made by Ms Norvill and are true.