An actress who worked in a film directed by Noel Clarke said she felt “shell-shocked” when he asked her to “bend over further” during a scene where she was naked from the waist down, the High Court has heard.
The woman, known only as Mila, gave evidence on Thursday in Clarke’s legal case against Guardian News and Media (GNM).
Mila told the court that although she felt uncomfortable about filming the nude scene, she needed the work.
In her witness statement, she said: “Noel was telling me to bend over, repeating things like ‘bend over further, come on’, and ‘do it properly’.
“I was clearly very uncomfortable and resisting doing this, I was doing the strip tease as requested and this extra request did not feel necessary.
“He repeated these comments until I bent over further and further until I was bent completely over with my bum in the air.”
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Mila added that she felt “hugely embarrassed, blindsided and shell shocked” by the filming.
Mila also said that while Clarke’s tone “might have sounded jovial to some, it was very persistent”.
Philip Williams, for Clarke, asked her: “Noel’s tone was encouraging and jovial, that is why you put it in, because others knew it was jovial.”
Mila replied: “He was masking his persistent direction.
“If he had been aggressive, or really, really shouting at me, that would have been hard to get away with.”
Clarke, 49, is suing the publisher of the Guardian newspaper over seven articles and a podcast, including an article in April 2021 that said 20 women who knew him professionally had come forward with allegations of misconduct.
He denies the allegations, while GNM is defending its reporting as being both true and in the public interest.
In Mila’s witness statement, she said she later worked on another project with Clarke, but this had no sex scenes.
Some time after this she received a message from Clarke “out of the blue”, asking if they could speak, she said.
Mila said that during the call he asked her if they “were cool” in relation to the first film they worked on.
The actress said in her statement: “I told him that I was not ok with it and that I had felt very uncomfortable at various points and that I would not let something like that happen to me again.
“Noel said he was sorry if he had made me feel uncomfortable.
“He was talking about how becoming a father had made him reflect and that he wanted to raise his sons to be upstanding young men. He said he was ringing round people to apologise.”
She added that he seemed “panicked” on the call, and it seemed to her that “his purpose was either fishing to see whether I was unhappy about his treatment of me on the film, or he was trying to cover his tracks in some way”.
Clarke’s denial
Clarke denies the allegations Mila has made, and in his witness statement, said: “The reiteration of the scene is highly distorted and exaggerated.
“This scene was not filmed to procure any kind of personal or sexual gratification, nor was that ever the intention.”
He added: “I did not comment in the way pleaded, and did not ask Mila to bend over in any way which made her uncomfortable, or in a way which was not true to the script.”
In relation to the phone call, Clarke said he got in contact with Mila after being made aware of comments she had made about her experience filming the nude scene.
He added: “I apologised for any hardship she may have felt or if, in retrospect, Mila felt uncomfortable.
“I confirmed that no untoward behaviour had been engaged in, and reassured her that protocol had been followed by the crew at all times.
“Mila accepted my apology, admitting that in retrospect, she had changed her mind about her involvement in the scene, and felt uncomfortable taking part in an explicit scene.”
The hearing before Mrs Justice Steyn is due to conclude in April, with a decision expected in writing at a later date.
