GQ: Given what’s happened in Hollywood with Harvey
Weinstein, has it been a bit of a respite to be over here in Australia?
AH: It has. Respite, indeed, I have been enjoying the
exhaustion that comes with having nothing but 16-hour
days. With my head down, you know, in my spandex suit
saving the world as one does. All I can say is I’m grateful
for the work and the fact that I’m far away and removed
from the drama that’s going on in Hollywood. I’m far away
from home, but I’m in a place that feels like a second home.
And I’m spending a lot of time getting to know the crew. I
think I’m falling in love with the Australian point of view.
It’s been an unbelievable seven months. I’ve met so many
amazing people and being here has been a gift of fortune.
GQ: But it must be devastating to see all the stories that are
being unearthed at the moment. How has it all been able to
remain secret for so long?
AH: You scratch your head wondering why women go through this
sort of harm most often behind closed doors. I mean just look at
how we treat those who do come forward? We have a long history
of dismantling and discrediting women with ease in a public theatre.
So, you can understand why it would be so intimidating to say
anything whether you’re a man or a woman. It’s a club as well,
a small world. And, I imagine that being that small it adopts
a certain posture.
GQ: Why do you think, on this occasion, people have spoken out?
AH: I don’t know why. I just don’t know.
GQ: Do you think it has taken something like Trump being president
for people to stand up and speak out against misogyny?
AH: Well, I feel like with a movement of any kind, there has to be
a certain weight to the impudence in order for any sort of reactionary
response to popularise and galvanise. So, for any movement, there needs
to be a bigger impudence of equal weight to get it to actually take hold.
GQ: Given what you’ve been through, is it difficult to appreciate that
you’re a role model to young men and women?
AH: I feel incredibly fortunate that I’m in a position where I could
be of any help. At times it’s a burden to consider that your life is no
longer just yours and it’s not private. It can be hard to know that
you can’t function in full – that anonymity is no longer a valid goal
and that your actions and words, whether they’re done on a red
carpet or in the most intimate corners of your personal life, to
know that those aren’t fully yours anymore. That’s a difficult
realisation to come to when it does hit you. It’s severe but you grow
and move on from that and on balance I take into consideration all
of the incredible fortune I have being in this position. It’s hard to
stay mad at it for long.
GQ: Is it ever uncomfortable when people call you brave or
inspirational, essentially for standing up for what you believe?
AH: Have you ever met a woman? Of course I don’t mind. I love it.
I always tend to do things truthfully and do the right thing. All I
strive for in life is never get the temptation to try to be popular, liked,
accepted. It’s never anywhere equal to the desire I have to live my life
truthfully and with dignity and with pride. And I wouldn’t be able
to do that if I wasn’t living honestly, so it was never tempting to me
to live another way. Despite how unpopular a certain stance could
be or a certain posture I was adopting was acknowledged to be.
No matter how unpopular or untenable my decisions were,
it was never tempting enough to live dishonestly.
GQ: You’ve worked with the likes of Charlize Theron and Nicole as
well as emerging talents like Cara Delevingne. What is it like to work
with these great women?
AH: I feel very lucky to be able to look up to so many women. In my
business it’s changing a lot, for the better. I’m so lucky that I’m alive
right now and able to say, truthfully, that I can look around and my
peers are doing inspirational things and women in my business – like
Angelina, like Charlize, like Nicole, or younger generations like Cara- not being satisfied with just going home at the end of the day rich
and famous. They are also doing something with their lives to change
the fate of others, to challenge certain social norms or to make the
world for their daughters a slightly better place than it was for them
when they were that age.
GQ: What does feminism mean to you?
AH: Feminism is like religion – it’s one of those slippery concepts
that can be really just what you want it to be. You get out of it what
you want to get out of it. Or what you put into it. Depending on the
context, the connotations of feminism can differ wildly. But, for me,
it means nothing more than fairness, not equality. I love being
a woman. I’m 100 per cent a woman because I identify that way.
I am one, so I don’t want to be the same. Fairness is a better way
to look at it.
GQ: Is it fair to say that there’s a severe lack of positive male role
models in this day and age?
AH: No, I wouldn’t say that. I think the archetype of manhood or
manliness in a traditional sense is being pushed. It’s being slowly
eroded and in that erosion it’s pushing certain elements of
stereotypical masculinity to the fringes and isolating certain
characteristics of masculinity. In isolation they are self-adjusted.
We see fringe traits of ‘typical manliness’ projected on to some
actors. And in a public theatre they embody super specific traits
of masculinity and without that complete representation of a man,
not only in fiction and movies and art and television,
we also lose it in our public figures.
GQ: Who are your male role models?
AH: I still think I’m harbouring an Obama crush. I’m attempting
to get rid of it, but I’m just trying to be open to other possibilities.
GQ: One man who is definitely breaking that mould in terms of being
a role model is Elon Musk. Why can’t more men have a similar
kind of ‘can do’ outlook as him?
AH: I don’t know. I would point to a real deficit in personalities
to whom younger men could look up to.
GQ: We hear you. But with all that’s happened in Hollywood,
are you hoping that this is the beginning of the end to what’s
been going down?
AH: I’ll put it this way, I am on the front lines and I plan to maintain my
position on the front lines of this fight to make it change. But I have no
expectation that I will be putting down my sword anytime soon. n
“I think the archetype
of manhood in a
traditional sense is being
pushed to the fringes.”
194 GQ.COM.AU MEN OF THE YEAR 2017