George Clooney wants to lend his voice to preventing a future Harvey Weinstein situation from happening again.
The 56-year-old spoke with ET’s Carly Steel at a press junket for his new film Suburbicon on Saturday where he opened up about the aftermath of the Weinstein scandal.
“We have to, moving forward, we have to make sure that now there has to be something good that’s gonna come out of all of this. And the thing that’s good that could come out of this is that women feel safer in talking about these situations, and in doing so, that it makes it much harder for men who would behave like this to do it, [knowing] that they'll get outed… they could lose their job or even go to jail if it goes that far. I think it’s important that that's gotta be the step forward from this. There has to be something good that comes out of it.”
Clooney is also devoted to finding others responsible in allowing Weinstein’s behavior to continue.
“Harvey would talk about women that he'd, you know, gone out with. I didn't really necessarily believe that ‘cause to believe that would believe bad things about actresses that I know and like, and I didn't really buy into that,” Clooney said. “But I will say that somebody knew and if there was a reporter that sat on a story for years and didn't write it, I want to know why because I would have liked to know to these stories. And if there was a newspaper of a website that had this information that investigated it, I'd like to see how much ad money they got from Miramax or from the Weinstein Company.”
He added, “I want to know who took women up to a hotel room and then left them there for Harvey. I want to know who did that. Harvey's gonna get his and deserves it. But there's other people involved in this and the whole culture of this is gonna have to stop.”
The Oscar winner was quick to note that it’s not just show business where these issues of sexual harassment and assault are taking place. In fact, Clooney also talked about how the news has affected his wife, Amal, who is a top human rights lawyer.
Photo: Getty Images
“She's faced those exact kinds of situations in law,” he said. “It’s everywhere and so it needs to be addressed as if it’s a problem for all of us. And we have to take it on full force ‘cause the kind of assault that we're talking about now is – it’s so infuriating that this was allowed to go on as long as it did."
Clooney brought Amal and his mother-in-law, Baria Alamuddin, as his dates to Sunday’s premiere of his new film in Los Angeles.
Photo: Getty Images
WATCH: Harvey Weinstein Scandal Continues: Could He Face Charges Amid Further Allegations?
“I've got the mother-in-law here, so you guys say nice things, OK?” he teased of his VIP date.
For more on the Weinstein scandal, watch the clip below!
