Thandie Newton: 'Dirty director shot up my skirt at casting call and showed friends'

Actress Thandie Newton was sexually exploited by an unnamed director when she was a teenager starting out in the movie business.

The Crash star joined thousands of people across the world on Valentine's Day (14Feb13) to march for women's rights as part of the One Billion Rising movement, which aims to put an end to domestic violence and rape, and she reveals she had a personal reason for supporting the campaign - she was taken advantage of during early casting calls.

She tells CNN.com, "When I was a 16 year old, fresh from boarding school, going out in, you know the casting couch, I was definitely objectified to an extreme. The way I was made to feel. The way I was exploited and the kind of role and the kinds of things I was expected to do in auditions.

"One director asked me to sit with my legs apart - the camera was positioned where it could see up my skirt - to put my leg over the arm of the chair. Before I started my dialogue, (I was told to) think about the character I was supposed to be having the dialogue with and how it felt to be made love to by this person.

"I was thinking, 'This is so strange, why would I need to do that?' But this is the director, there is the casting director, (it) must be normal."

And to make matters worse, Newton later discovered the director had been showing the video to his friends: "It turned out the director... used to show that video late at night to interested parties at his house - a video of me touching myself with a camera up my skirt."

The 40-year-old beauty refused to name names during the interview.