• Cate Blanchett said the #MeToo movement “got killed very quickly” during a talk at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival
• The two-time Oscar winner said she still counts 10 women to every 75 men on film sets each morning
• Blanchett warned that silencing the conversation means the underlying “systemic layer of abuse” can never be addressed
• Julianne Moore echoed the sentiment at Cannes, saying she’s been on sets where she and one other woman were the only females present
• Blanchett also revealed she’s set to work with Brady Corbet, director of The Brutalist, on his next film

Cate Blanchett didn’t come to Cannes to mince words. Speaking Sunday at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival during a Rendez-vous with… conversation alongside moderator Didier Allouch, the two-time Oscar winner said what a lot of people in Hollywood have been quietly thinking: the #MeToo movement “got killed very quickly” — and the industry is still paying for it.

“It got killed very quickly, which I think is interesting,” Blanchett said, her tone measured but pointed.

She didn’t stop there. “There are a lot of people with platforms who are able to speak up with relative safety and say this has happened to me, and the so-called average woman on the street is saying #MeToo. Why does that get shut down? What [the movement] revealed is a systemic layer of abuse, not only in this industry but in all industries, and if you don’t identify a problem, you can’t solve the problem. You shut that conversation down. You can’t move on.”

It’s a distinction that matters to her — the gap between women who have enough social currency to speak publicly and those who don’t. For Blanchett, the silencing of everyday voices is exactly where the movement lost its momentum, and where the real damage sits.

Still Counting Heads Every Morning

For all the progress that’s been talked about over the past decade, Blanchett says the reality on actual film sets hasn’t changed much. She’s still doing a daily tally.

“I’m still on film sets and I do the headcount every day, and it is still, you know… there’s 10 women and there’s 75 men every morning,” she said. “I love men, but what happens is the jokes become the same. You just have to brace yourself slightly, and I’m used to that, but it just gets boring for everybody when you walk into a homogeneous workplace. I think it has an effect on the work.”

That last part — that the gender imbalance actually shapes the creative output — is the argument Blanchett has been making for years, and it’s one she clearly hasn’t let go of.

She was at pains to acknowledge some signs of hope, though. She praised the heads of major film festivals for signing a pledge to increase representation. “I was so grateful to Thierry and Alberto and Cameron and all the people who are leading the major festivals around the world [when they] signed that they would make a pledge to increase representation, because it’s better for audiences when you don’t see the same old, same old,” she said. “There are extraordinary films every year in each of these festivals, but when the voices are all the same, it does become a bit beige, and I do think it has affected the programming.”

A History of Showing Up

Blanchett has been one of the most consistent and visible voices on this issue at Cannes specifically. In 2018, at the height of the #MeToo moment, she served as jury president and led a women’s march up the steps of the Palais des Festivals, hand-in-hand with Kristen Stewart, Léa Seydoux, Ava DuVernay, Agnès Varda and dozens of others. There were 82 women in total — a number chosen deliberately to represent the 82 female directors who had competed at Cannes up to that point in the festival’s history, set against 1,866 male directors over the same period.

At the time, she said: “Women are not a minority in the world, yet the current state of the industry says otherwise. As women, we all face our own unique challenges, but we stand together on these stairs today as a symbol of our determination and commitment to progress.”

That was eight years ago. The headcount on set, she says, hasn’t moved much.

Julianne Moore Had Her Own Moment

Blanchett wasn’t the only one raising these issues on the Croisette this week. Julianne Moore, speaking at the Kering Women in Motion Talk, shared a story that landed just as hard. “I can remember being on a set not too long ago where the only women were me and the third AC,” Moore said. She connected the moment to a broader reckoning: “It’s when Hillary Clinton lost the election, and we were both devastated. And I said, ‘Look around the room. We’re the only ones here.'” Moore acknowledged she’s seen some improvement over the years, but the baseline she described — being one of two women on an entire crew — speaks for itself.

Beyond the gender conversation, Blanchett dropped one piece of news that will have film fans paying attention: she revealed she’s “about to work with Brady Corbet” on a new film. Corbet, who directed the Oscar-winning The Brutalist, is also reported to have Selena Gomez attached to the project. Whatever that film turns out to be, a Blanchett-Corbet collaboration is about as exciting a pairing as you can get right now.

For Blanchett, though, the work she’s most focused on this week isn’t in front of a camera. She’s also hosting a panel at Cannes to announce the next cohort of artists supported by her Proof of Concept program, which backs women, trans and non-binary voices in filmmaking, and her Displacement Film Fund for refugee filmmakers. She’s been doing this quietly alongside the awards and the red carpets for years — building something structural, not just speaking about it.

Which is maybe why her frustration about #MeToo carries so much weight. “You shut that conversation down,” she said Sunday. “You can’t move on.”

The post Cate Blanchett: #MeToo ‘Got Killed Very Quickly’ appeared first on Cream.

• A Manhattan judge declared a mistrial Friday after the jury deadlocked in Harvey Weinstein’s rape retrial — the third time he’s faced trial on these charges.
• The jury, which was majority-male, could not unanimously decide whether Weinstein raped Jessica Mann at a Manhattan hotel in March 2013.
• Prosecutors have 30 days to decide whether to pursue a fourth trial on the single count of third-degree rape.
• Weinstein, 74, remains incarcerated and still faces sentencing on his 2025 conviction for sexually assaulting Miriam Haley.
• He is also less than halfway through a separate 16-year prison sentence from his 2022 Los Angeles rape conviction.

Harvey Weinstein’s rape retrial ended in a mistrial Friday after a Manhattan jury deadlocked for the second time on the same charge — leaving Jessica Mann’s rape allegation unresolved after three separate trials and years of grueling courtroom testimony.

Judge Curtis Farber declared the mistrial just after 1 p.m., following roughly nine hours of total deliberations spread across three days. The jury, composed of seven men and five women, had sent multiple notes to the judge signaling they were stuck. The final one, sent around the lunch break, was unambiguous: “We feel no one is going to change where they stand.”

Before that, the jurors had written: “We the jury request to let the judge know that the members of the jury have concluded that we cannot reach a unanimous decision.” When that first note arrived, Farber had issued an Allen charge — a standard instruction urging the panel to keep trying. “When this trial began, many prospective jurors were called and questioned,” the judge told them. “You, ladies and gentlemen, were selected to serve. That means of all the prospective jurors called in this case, you were the ones in whom both sides expressed confidence.” He ended the charge by asking jurors to apply “common sense and good judgement.”

One juror, described as a young man, appeared visibly frustrated during the charge — closing his eyes and rubbing his forehead as the judge spoke. Not long after, the panel sent its second note, and Weinstein’s attorney Marc Agnifilo moved for a mistrial. The judge granted it.

Three Trials, No Verdict on Mann’s Allegations

The road to this moment has been extraordinarily long. Weinstein was first convicted in 2020 on charges that included Mann’s rape allegation, but the New York Court of Appeals overturned that conviction in 2024, ruling that the original trial judge had improperly allowed testimony about allegations not directly tied to the case. At a retrial last year, the jury convicted Weinstein of a first-degree criminal sexual act for forcibly performing oral sex on former Project Runway production assistant Miriam Haley in 2006 — but deadlocked on Mann’s count, forcing this third trial. He was acquitted in that same retrial on charges involving former model Kaja Sokola.

Now, after this second deadlock on Mann’s allegation alone, Judge Farber has given prosecutors 30 days to decide whether to try the case a fourth time.

The charge is a single count of third-degree rape. It stems from what Mann, now 40, says happened at the DoubleTree hotel in Midtown Manhattan on March 18, 2013 — a day she has recounted in detail across three separate trials. This time, she testified for five full days out of a nearly four-week proceeding. Weinstein did not take the stand.

What Mann Told the Jury

Mann’s testimony was emotional and, by all accounts, consistent across every trial she has faced. She broke down multiple times on the stand, telling jurors how Weinstein allegedly pinned both of her wrists above her head. “I said, ‘No’ over and over and I tried to leave,” she said through sobs, at one point demonstrating the alleged position for the jury.

She acknowledged that she did have a consensual relationship with Weinstein at certain points, explaining that she had hoped it might grow into something real — a “loving relationship.” She also testified that she was fully aware of his power in Hollywood. “Essentially, his friends go very far and his enemies don’t step foot in this town,” she said, recounting what Weinstein had told her about his industry clout.

Mann said Weinstein had told her he was in an “open relationship” with his then-wife, designer Georgina Chapman, when they began their involvement. She also testified that Weinstein allegedly raped her at a Los Angeles hotel later in 2013, though he is not charged for that incident.

The defense leaned heavily on the complicated aftermath of the alleged assault. Weinstein’s attorney Teny Geragos pressed Mann during a multi-day cross-examination about a handwritten note she sent to Weinstein just two days after the alleged attack — introduced for the first time at any trial. In it, Mann wrote: “Do I love him or the idea of him? With him — easy. The idea of expanding that — fulfilling.” There was no mention of an assault. Geragos also highlighted warm messages Mann sent Weinstein over time, including notes saying things like “Miss you, big guy” and “Appreciate all you do for me.”

Mann has consistently said she was mired in complicated feelings — about Weinstein, about herself, and about what had happened. Her perspective shifted in 2017, when a wave of sexual misconduct allegations against the Oscar-winning producer became a catalyst for the #MeToo movement.

In closing arguments, Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Nicole Blumberg urged jurors to understand how power distorts everything. “She missed the red flags, she missed the manipulation, the power, the control. She rationalized in her own mind the unwanted sex in the beginning,” Blumberg told the panel. Weinstein’s attorney Marc Agnifilo, meanwhile, attacked Mann’s credibility and pointed to her mental state at the time, arguing she was lying on the witness stand.

Where Weinstein Stands Now

Despite the mistrial, Weinstein isn’t going anywhere. The 74-year-old former Miramax boss has been behind bars since 2020 and remains there, his health visibly declining in recent years. He was diagnosed with bone marrow cancer in 2024 and has used a wheelchair for years. During deliberations this week, he was briefly sidelined after reporting chest pains in a courthouse holding area — he looked pale but said he felt “good, fine” when he returned the following day.

He still awaits sentencing in New York for his 2025 conviction on the first-degree criminal sexual act charge involving Haley — a conviction that could carry up to 25 years. Judge Farber has held off on that sentencing until the Mann count is resolved. Weinstein is also less than halfway through a 16-year prison sentence from his separate 2022 Los Angeles conviction for raping and sexually assaulting Italian model and actor Evgeniya Chernyshova — a verdict currently on appeal. He is expected to be returned to California before serving any New York time.

Weinstein has maintained throughout all of this that he “acted wrongly” but never assaulted anyone.

For Jessica Mann, who has now faced her alleged attacker in a courtroom three times and told the same devastating story to three different juries, the question of what comes next rests with the Manhattan DA’s office. The day after last year’s mixed verdict, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin L. Bragg said his office was “ready to go forward to trial again, after conferring with Jessica Mann.” Whether they’ll make that call a second time — putting Mann through a fourth trial — is now the decision that looms.

The post Harvey Weinstein Rape Retrial Ends in Mistrial appeared first on Cream.