Jessica Chastain felt speaking about Weinstein would hurt her career

Hollywood actress Jessica Chastain has revealed that she was "surprised" to see her name in the Best Actress category in this year's Golden Globe nominations after speaking out against Harvey Weinstein.

According to Page Six, the 40-year-old actress felt that speaking out against sexual harassment in Hollywood would impact her professional life and also feared that her views might damage her career.

Chastain said, "To be honest, I'm mainly surprised about my nomination. As an actor, I have a lot of fear, thinking that if I speak my mind, or something that feels like it deviates from the norm as a woman, am I going to be made to disappear in my industry?"

The 'Miss Sloane' star, who has been nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Actress (Drama) for her role in 'Molly's Game', admits her friends helped her to "eliminate fear" that she might be wrecking her career by airing her views about the producer.

"When the article came out about Weinstein, I immediately started tweeting. I've got a good group of girlfriends on WhatsApp, and I said, 'I'm really terrified I'm destroying my career right now. I wonder if people will still see me as an actress, and want to work with knowing I have these opinions," noted Chastain.

She added, "In the way that only good girlfriends can do, they helped me eliminate fear and understand that the only way to change something that's wrong is to change it, not ignore it. And rather than saying it's an industry-wide issue, it's more than that. It's a society-wide issue. We can't ignore farm workers or women who have been invisible."

Chastain has long been outspoken about her feminist beliefs, from blasting CBS for lacking series with female leads to speaking out about the portrayal of women in movies at the Cannes Film Festival and demanding pay equality for women in film and elsewhere.

In October, Jessica claimed she was warned about 65-year-old Weinstein "from the beginning" of her career, and urged men to speak up.

She wrote, "I was warned from the beginning. The stories were everywhere. To deny that is to create an environment for it to happen again. Yes, I'm sick of the media demanding only women speak up. What about the men? Perhaps many are afraid to look at their own behaviour."

Weinstein has denied the allegations of sexual assault and harassment against him.