The veteran Australian film director Fred Schepisi has told a court Geoffrey Rush faces a strong backlash in Hollywood after Sydney newspaper articles put him in the same league as “some rather disgusting people” exposed by the #MeToo movement.

The director said Rush’s career would never recover even if he was vindicated as an outcome of the defamation action.

Schepisi said he and actor Sam Neill had tried to help Rush after the 2017 articles that appeared in the Daily Telegraph but the Oscar winner was “entirely rattled” and unable to look to the future.

The director testified on Friday during Rush’s defamation trial against the Telegraph’s publisher, Nationwide News, and journalist Jonathon Moran over two articles and a poster about the now 67-year-old actor.

They related to an allegation Rush behaved inappropriately towards a co-star, later revealed to be Eryn Jean Norvill, during a Sydney Theatre Company production of King Lear in 2015 and 2016.

Rush denies the claims against him and argues the articles made him out to be a pervert and a sexual predator.

Nationwide News and Moran are pleading a defence of truth and Norvill – who didn’t speak with the journalist before the articles were published – agreed in July to give evidence.

Schepisi, a Golden Globe nominee who has directed films starring actors such as Rush, Neill, Meryl Streep, Ian McKellen and Paul Newman, said the articles seemed like “disgusting overkill” and “trial by media”.

“In the #MeToo world, at that moment, when the articles were sort of putting him in the same league as some rather disgusting people, there’s a backlash from that and it’s very strong,” he said.

The trial continues.