Ian McKellen on sexual harassment in Hollywood: Actresses offered to sleep with directors for roles

Sir Ian McKellen has given a rather unexpected response to the sexual harassment cases cropping up in Hollywood.

Hollywood veteran Sir Ian McKellen has said women are partly responsible for the scandal surfacing in the industry. Contactmusic.com quoted the 78-year-old actor as saying that female actors in the 1960s pitching for work would write DRR - director’s rights respected - on their headshots as a coded offer of sex for parts.

Ian McKellen wants a change to come to Hollywood with the revelations but doesn’t expect much from it. (AP)

While speaking at the Oxford Union, McKellen said, “People must be called out and it’s sometimes very difficult for victims to do that. I hope we’re going through a period that will help to eradicate it altogether. But from my own experience, when I was starting acting in the early sixties, the director of the theatre I was working at showed me some photographs he got from women who were wanting jobs, some of them had at the bottom of their photograph ‘DRR’ - directors’ rights respected.”

The Mr Holmes star added, “In other words, if you give me a job, you can have sex with me.”

Film producer Harvey Weisntein has been accused of sexually harassing and raping more than 70 women in Hollywood.

He also shared that he is worried “nothing good will come of the current Hollywood sexual misconduct allegations.

Sir Ian McKellen, who worked with Kevin Spacey in 2004, when Spacey was artistic director at the Old Vic in London said that the timing of Spacey’s own coming out was not ideal.

“The circumstances in which he chose to do it are reprehensible because it linked alleged underage sex with a declaration of sexuality,” explained the Da Vinci Code star.

This combination photo shows, top row from left, Kevin Spacey, Brett Ratner, Louis C.K., Distin Hoffman, and bottom row from left, former Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore, Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., former Today morning co-host Matt Lauer and former CBS This Morning co-host Charlie Rose, all of whom have been accused of sexual misconduct.

Following the misconduct allegations surrounding 65-year-old Weinstein, Hollywood stars including Brett Ratner, Louis C.K., and Jeremy Piven have also been accused of abusing their positions of power.

Most recently, Matt Lauer was fired from his position as host of the Today show after there was a “detailed complaint by a colleague”, who accused Lauer of behaving inappropriately.

Since then, several of other high profile men have been accused of inappropriate behaviour, including Kevin Spacey, George HW Bush, Dustin Hoffman, Steven Seagal and Jeffrey Tambor.

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