As the accusations of s*xual harassment and assault agains
t Harvey Weinstein have mounted, Matt Damon and George Clooney are speaking out, saying they had no idea of the alleged misconduct of the man who helped launch both of their careers.
"When people say like, 'Everybody knew,' Like, yeah," Damon told ABC News' Michael Strahan. "I knew he was an a------."
"I knew he was ... a womanizer," Damon added. "I wouldn't want to be married to the guy. But ... the criminal sexual predation is not something that I ever thought ... was going on. Absolutely not."
Clooney told ABC News that in the past Weinstein had told him that he had affairs with "some actresses who were friends of mine," but Clooney said that he never believed him.
"I didn't really think that they were going have affairs with Harvey, quite honestly. And clearly they didn't," he added. "But the idea that this predator, this assaulter ... was out there silencing women like that ... it's beyond infuriating."
Weinstein has acknowledged inappropriate behavior, but has denied any allegations of non-consensual sex.
"Any allegations of non-consensual s*x are unequivocally denied by Mr. Weinstein. Mr. Weinstein has further confirmed that there were never any acts of retaliation against any women for refusing his advances," his spokesman has previously said.
Clooney and Damon sat down with Strahan to talk about their new movie "Suburbicon," but the conversation quickly turned to the story rocking Hollywood.
Damon said he first worked with Weinstein for the film "Good Will Hunting," in the late 1990s, a period when he said Weinstein was at "the height of his power."
"We shot it 20 years ago this year. And I did five movies in quick succession. He signed me up for a three-picture deal," Damon said of Weinstein. "I didn't work with him again after that."
"You had to spend about five minutes with him to know that he was a bully. He was intimidating," Damon said of the producer. "Miramax was the place, really the place, that was making great stuff in the '90's. And it was like, 'Could you survive Harvey?'"
Damon said that while it was well known that Weinstein could be difficult to work with, the allegations that he had s*xually harassed dozens of women over the course of three decades were not widely known.
"I knew the story about Gwyneth from Ben," Damon added, referring to actress Gwyneth Paltrow, who recently claimed she was forced to rebuff unwanted advances from Weinstein.
"I never talked to Gwyneth about it. Ben told me ... but I knew that ... they had come to whatever, you know, agreement or understanding that they had come to, she had handled it," Damon said. "She was, you know, the first lady of Miramax. And he treated her incredibly respectfully."
Clooney said that the widespread harassment appears to be part of a larger, systemic problem.
"The fact that the story is coming out now and the more it comes out, I want know all of it," Clooney said.
The actor added that he also wants to hear about "the people who helped him."
"I would have done something about that. It makes me very angry to see that," Clooney added, referring to people who claim they were silenced from publishing stories about Weinstein. "Where did he spend his advertising dollars for the people who didn't print that story?"
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