After appearing on stage at the Academy Awards last month to present Best Actor winner Casey Affleck with his trophy, Brie Larson’s decision not to clap for during the Manchester by the Sea star’s speech became one of the ceremony’s major talking points.
Many believed that the actress, who won the Oscar last year for portraying a survivor of sexual abuse in Room, was silently protesting Affleck’s win: the actor was accused of sexual harassment in 2010 by two female employees on his film I’m Still Here, though the case was eventually settled outside of court.
Now, Brie has commented (albeit obliquely) on her action, and it seems that her decision was a deliberate one. Speaking to Vanity Fair at the Los Angeles premiere of Kong: Skull Island, the actress revealed: ‘I think that whatever it was that I did onstage kind of spoke for itself.’
‘I’ve said all that I need to say about that topic,’ she concluded.
The actress is a long-standing advocate for sexual abuse survivors, something that she touched upon when she interviewed actress Jane Fonda for The Edit (who revealed that she herself had been sexually abused during her childhood.)
‘Having played two characters who were sexually abused, I’ve done a lot of work with victims of sexual abuse. We can’t take any steps backward in allowing people to think abuse is their fault. It’s the people-pleaser disease,’ Brie said, going on to reveal that she’d always place her beliefs and principles above her Hollywood career.
‘I’d put it all on the line and be an activist for the rest of my life because it’s doesn’t feel right to me to be quiet,’ she said.
Affleck eventually addressed the controversy surrounding his Oscar win in an interview with the Boston Globe.
‘I believe that any kind of mistreatment of anyone for any reason is unacceptable and abhorrent,’ he said. ‘Everyone deserves to be treated with respect in the workplace and anywhere else.’
‘There’s really nothing I can do about it,’ he continued. ‘Other than live my life the way I know I live it and to speak to what my own values are and how I try to live by them all the time.’
READ MORE: Why Brie Larson's Refusal To Clap For Casey Affleck Matters