Cate Blanchett has chosen her words carefully in responding to allegations about Woody Allen which have cast a shadow over her best actress Oscar nomination.
The Australian actress, who has previously spoken of her high regard for the US director, is a red hot favourite to win best actress for her role in Blue Jasmine at next month's Academy Awards.
With voting for the Oscars underway, Allen on Monday hit back at his adopted daughter Dylan Farrow's allegations of sexual abuse, calling them "untrue and disgraceful".
In a letter to the New York Times, Dylan claimed she was assaulted by Allen in 1992 when she was seven years old.
"What if it had been your child, Cate Blanchett?" the 28-year-old said.
Blanchett later issued a statement saying she hoped the family could find peace.
"It's obviously been a long and painful situation for the family and I hope they find some resolution and peace," she said.
Allen's New York publicist said the filmmaker had never faced criminal charges over the claims and that court-appointed experts had decided there was no credible evidence of molestation.
"Mr Allen has read the article and found it untrue and disgraceful," publicist Leslee Dart said, adding that the director would be responding "very soon".
"The experts concluded there was no credible evidence of molestation, that Dylan Farrow had an inability to distinguish between fantasy and reality, and that Dylan Farrow had likely been coached by her mother Mia Farrow," Dart said.
Dylan, adopted by Allen during his relationship with actress Mia Farrow, spoke in detail for the first time about the alleged abuse inflicted on her by her father to the New York Times.
"He told me to lay on my stomach and play with my brother's electric train set. Then he sexually assaulted me," Farrow wrote.
She suggested that other abuse may have started even earlier, saying: "For as long as I could remember, my father had been doing things to me that I didn't like."
The unproven allegations first emerged in the aftermath of Allen's acrimonious split with Mia Farrow in 1992. The director has always vigorously denied abusing his adopted daughter.
Allen, 78, left Mia Farrow after starting a relationship with the actress's adopted daughter from a previous marriage, Soon-Yi Previn.
A New York judge in the 1994 custody battle between Allen and Farrow ruled that the abuse allegations were inconclusive, but at the same time lambasted the director as "self-absorbed, untrustworthy and insensitive".
The younger Farrow accused the Hollywood establishment of sweeping Allen's alleged crimes under the carpet by continuing to honour his films.
Dylan may have tainted Allen's image, but the director pursued a career spanning some 50 years, more than 40 movies, 24 Oscar nominations, four Oscar wins and many more prizes.
He is now chasing an Oscar that would be his fifth for his latest film, Blue Jasmine.
