The British film star issued a statement after accusations were made against the director but now says ‘I don’t think it’s the responsibility of his actors to speak to that situation’

• ‘I’ve had a wild, chaotic, beautiful life’: Rebecca Hall on race, regrets and learning to be herself

The leading British actor and director Rebecca Hall regrets making a public apology for having worked with Woody Allen, she has revealed. Actors, she now believes, should not feel pressured into taking positions on contentious issues.

The film star, who starred to great acclaim in Allen’s 2008 film Vicky Cristina Barcelona, made her high-profile statement six years ago in the initial wake of the Harvey Weinstein abuse story when she was due to appear on screen in Allen’s 2019 romantic comedy A Rainy Day in New York, alongside Timothée Chalamet, Selena Gomez and Jude Law. Her comments were made when she was in an emotional “tangle” and pregnant, she tells the Observer magazine this weekend. She had understood, she said, the significance of the moment and of a need to believe women, “so I felt like I wanted to do something definitive”.