Lea Seydoux says she had to defend herself as she joins Weinstein accusers

The French actress, who won the Palme d’Or at Cannes for Blue Is The Warmest Colour, said the movie mogul stared at her “as if I was a piece of meat”.

Writing in the Guardian, she said: “We met in the lobby of his hotel. His assistant, a young woman, was there. All throughout the evening, he flirted and stared at me as if I was a piece of meat.

“He acted as if he were considering me for a role. But I knew that was bullshit. I knew it, because I could see it in his eyes. He had a lecherous look. He was using his power to get sex.

“He invited me to come to his hotel room for a drink. We went up together. It was hard to say no because he’s so powerful. All the girls are scared of him.

“Soon, his assistant left and it was just the two of us. That’s the moment where he started losing control.

“We were talking on the sofa when he suddenly jumped on me and tried to kiss me. I had to defend myself. He’s big and fat, so I had to be forceful to resist him.

“I left his room, thoroughly disgusted. I wasn’t afraid of him, though. Because I knew what kind of man he was all along.”

Seydoux added she has seen Weinstein hitting on women on numerous occasions since then, adding “everyone could see what he was doing”.

She continued: “That’s the most disgusting thing. Everyone knew what Harvey was up to and no one did anything.

“It’s unbelievable that he’s been able to act like this for decades and still keep his career. That’s only possible because he has a huge amount of power.

“In this industry, there are directors who abuse their position. They are very influential, that’s how they can do that. With Harvey, it was physical. With others, it’s just words.

“Sometimes, it feels like you have to be very strong to be a woman in the film industry. It’s very common to encounter these kinds of men.”

Seydoux said she had had similar experiences with other men in the film industry, citing one director who told her he wanted to have sex with her and another who lingered over long sex scenes, filming them over days and “replaying the scenes over and over again in a kind of stupor”.

She continued: “Yet another director tried to kiss me. Like Weinstein, I had to physically push him away, too. He acted like a crazy man, deranged by the fact that I didn’t want to have sex with him.

“If you’re a woman working in the film industry, you have to fight because it is a very misogynistic world. Why else are salaries so unequal? Why do men earn more than women? There is no reason for it to be that way.”