Tom Hanks is the latest member of Hollywood to speak out about Harvey Weinstein amid the movie producer’s ongoing sexual assault scandal.
“We’re at a watershed moment, this is a sea change,” the 61-year-old entertainer told the BBC. “His last name will become a noun and a verb. It will become an identifying moniker for a state of being for which there was a before and an after.”
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“Everybody has stories about some aspect of the ‘casting couch’,” Tom added. “It would be too simplistic to say this only happens in Hollywood. I watch Mad Men, you could probably say the same about the advertising agency. Look at the halls of government, how many sex scandals do you have there?”
“There is going to be, righteously, a pause in the discussion for the women to be heard,” Tom continued. “Perhaps all men, myself included, should pipe down and not try to explain it or comment on it or certainly not try to defend it or even prosecute it because every one of those women, those 40 women I was in the room with, 100% of them need to be listened to.”
Pictured: Tom joining Mary-Louise Parker as David Lynch Foundation hosts Change Begins Within: Healing the Hidden Wounds of War Benefit Dinner & Conversation at The Plaza Hotel in New York City.