The 'Educating Rita' star fears protesters are over-reacting to the alleged crimes of disgraced movie boss Harvey Weinstein.

AceShowbiz - The Pianist and Educating Rita star Maureen Lipman has attacked the activists behind the #MeToo movement for vilifying innocent men.

British thespian fears protesters are over-reacting to the alleged crimes of disgraced movie boss Harvey Weinstein, whose misconduct sparked the campaign, accusing them of piling on male stars and losing focus on the real rapists.

Dustin Hoffman, Morgan Freeman, Jeremy Piven, and James Franco were among the names caught up in the aftermath of the Weinstein scandal as more and more women used the #MeToo movement as a signal to come forward with allegations of inappropriate behaviour.

And Lipman has had enough of all the drama.

"It's just the same as the (British radio and TV presenter) Jimmy Savile thing - you've missed the main predator for so long, which makes you feel so utterly abject, that you then think, 'Yeah, and I bet he's one...'" she tells the Daily Telegraph.

Savile was exposed as a paedophile and sexual predator after his death in 2011, prompting detectives to launch Operation Yew Tree in an effort to seek out other entertainers who had taken advantage of young fans.

''So they go for these unfashionable light entertainment blokes who wouldn't hurt a fly, and... make their lives hell. A huge over-reaction going on. If Dustin Hoffman put his hand on someone's knee 40 years and (we have to) boycott films, it's just bloody stupid. Separate the real rapists, the ones who dope women's drinks".

Lipman also addressed the ongoing drama surrounding her The Pianist director Roman Polanski, who has been a fugitive from the U.S. since 1977, after fleeing the country while awaiting sentencing for having unlawful sex with a 13-year-old girl.

Like the filmmaker's victim, Maureen believes Polanski has been punished for his actions, urging lawmakers in the U.S. to move on.

"Polanski was an abused child and he flew too near to the sun too quickly," she says. "But I think 60 years of punishment is probably enough for doing what in the 60s was pretty prevalent. The lesson, really, is: let's get on with it from today. Let's teach our daughters, and our sons I suppose: 'it is possible to say 'no' without rancour, without anger, without emotion'".

The actress also revealed to the Telegraph that her sense of humour helped her escape an assault involving an unnamed American actor early in her career: "(He said), 'I think you have a good deal of untapped sexuality... Meet me at the St George's Hotel in Marylebone in an hour and a half. Don't wear black velvet trousers'," she recalls.

"Of course I went! That's what I'm saying: we have to educate our young people to think that that is not a good idea... In the end I got myself out a really difficult situation just with jokes. Men hate women who tell jokes".

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