No stranger to speaking truth to power herself, Amber spoke out back in 2017 about her experiences with disgraced movie mogul and serial sexual abuser Harvey Weinstein. In an Instagram post, she described the moment that Weinstein “propositioned a ‘personal’ relationship to further my career”.
“He tried to take my hand and put it in his lap which is when I managed to leave the room,” her post reads.
Almost five years on, and many waves of the #MeToo movement later, the actress concedes that “there’s still work to be done”. But, she commends changes that have been made to on-set dynamics when it comes to sex scenes. In particular, she stresses the importance of intimacy co-ordinators on set, whose job it is to ensure the wellbeing of actors when they are performing sex scenes.
“Even with the best intentions in the world, it’s so easy for it to end up feeling really f*cking awkward and weird to be honest,” Amber says. “So I think that stuff is just beginning to feel much better and much more positive and supportive.”
The onus on women to not only report, but protect each other from sexual assault in the entertainment industry seems to have shifted somewhat, she adds, so that men are a much larger part of the conversation and the accountability.
“In my experience, there’s been a culture on set of women sticking together and forming a little gang, and looking after each other and protecting each other. And sadly, that’s the way we’ve had to evolve,” she says. “Now, I see a lot more women and men having those conversations. And that feels very encouraging. But I think like anything, it’s a work in progress.
“I feel like before, it was just women trying to look after everyone and make sure that no one was made to feel uncomfortable by – usually, sadly – a man.”
Once she’s back from her South Africa trip, Amber is set to start work on an exciting new film called Tell That to the Winter Sea, which tells a story of female friendship and sexuality.
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