Kate Winslet Tries Out a New Defense of Woody Allen: 'On Some Level, Woody Is a Woman'

Although allegations about Woody Allen’s past transgressions have been public for years—his daughter, Dylan Farrow, penned a piece in 2014 alleging that Allen sexually abused her as a child—A-list stars like Kate Winslet still line up to work with him and struggle to explain why they choose to make movies with an alleged abuser.

Winslet, who stars in Allen’s new film, Wonder Wheel, has clumsily defended her decision to work with the director before, but tried a new tactic in a recent interview, telling the Sydney Morning Herald: “I think on some level Woody is a woman.”

“I just think he’s very in touch with that side of himself,” she continued. “He understands the female characters he creates exceptionally well. His female characters are always so rich and large and honest in terms of how they’re feeling and he just knows how to write dialogue for them to communicate all that.”

It’s certainly a more direct response to Allen’s past than she offered in a September interview with The New York Times, where she said, “As the actor in the film, you just have to step away and say, I don’t know anything, really, and whether any of it is true or false. Having thought it all through, you put it to one side and just work with the person.”

In an op-ed published Thursday by the Los Angeles Times under the headline “Why has the #MeToo revolution sparred Woody Allen?” Farrow criticized Winslet, Greta Gerwig, and Blake Lively for lamely responding to her allegations.

“It isn’t just power that allows men accused of sexual abuse to keep their careers and their secrets. It is also our collective choice to see simple situations as complicated and obvious conclusions as a matter of ‘who can say’?” she wrote. “The system worked for Harvey Weinstein for decades. It works for Woody Allen still.”