Asked if he had also said Mr Rush needed to be more "paternal", Mr Armfield said: "I don't remember saying that." "Such a significant thing I believe I would remember, had I said it," he added under cross-examination by Nationwide News' barrister, Tom Blackburn, SC. "You don't absolutely deny that you did say it, do you?" Mr Blackburn said. Geoffrey Rush with theatre director Neil Armfield, right, outside the Federal Court on Wednesday. Credit:AAP/Brendan Esposito "I can't imagine using the word creepy, so I deny saying that," Mr Armfield said.

Mr Rush's co-star Helen Buday, who played King Lear's daughter Goneril during the production, gave evidence that she did not hear Mr Armfield using the words "creepy and unclear". In a theatrical stint in the witness box, during which she laughed at times at Mr Blackburn and sang lines from the song Truly Scrumptious featured in the 1968 film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang – in a reference to allegations Mr Rush called Ms Norvill "yummy" and "scrumptious" – Ms Buday said she thought a text message from Mr Rush to Ms Norvill was "charming" and not inappropriate. Geoffrey Rush and Eryn Jean Norvill, with fellow cast members Helen Buday, standing, and Helen Thomson, right, at the Sydney Theatre Company ahead of the King Lear production. Credit:Nic Walker She said the June 2016 text, in which he said he was "thinking of you (as I do more than is socially appropriate)" and included an emoji with its tongue hanging out, was a way of "getting into young-speak". She accused Mr Blackburn of "trying to make something out of this that's just not there". She laughed when asked if the text was an example of bad mentoring. Ms Buday said she had "a lot of empathy" for young performers and stood up for them, but she had not witnessed Mr Rush behaving inappropriately towards Ms Norvill.

Ms Norvill is expected to give evidence that Mr Armfield directed Mr Rush during a cast meeting that his performance of King Lear had become "creepy and unclear" when he was grieving over Cordelia's corpse. In an outline of evidence, Ms Norvill said she expected Mr Armfield would not support that version of events because of his friendship with Mr Rush. Loading Mr Armfield told the court on Thursday he was "telling the truth" and "I like to think I'm a friend of both" Mr Rush and Ms Norvill. Mr Armfield said he had not seen Mr Rush making sexually suggestive gestures towards Ms Norvill, such as using two cupped hands to simulate groping.

He said he had "never" heard him make jokes or comments about Ms Norvill's body and "certainly [did] not" hear any comments containing sexual innuendo about her body. "I would have said, 'What are you doing? Stop,'" Mr Armfield said. Loading "If she had raised that as a problem I would have talked to Geoffrey about it, I would have thought, and maybe with the stage manager gathered the three of them together." Mr Armfield said he was watching the stage "like a hawk" and it was his job to do so.

Asked if he had ever seen Mr Rush brush the side of her breast with his hand, Mr Armfield said he suspected that "to ask someone to pick up someone's torso and hold it up against his head", as he had directed Mr Rush to do in a scene in which he grieves over Cordelia's corpse, would be "impossible to do without touching her breast" but he certainly didn't see any "gratuitous action". In documents filed in court, Mr Rush's lawyers say the Telegraph stories convey a string of false and defamatory imputations about him, including that he is "a pervert" and "sexual predator". Loading Nationwide News is defending the reports on the basis the allegations are true. The publisher alleges Mr Rush "traced across" the side of Ms Norvill's breast during a preview performance in November 2015 as he grieved over Cordelia's body, as well as touching her lower back under her shirt to her waistline and starting to touch her lower back until she asked him to stop. Mr Rush has denied the claims.

A host of witnesses from the theatrical community gave evidence for Mr Rush on Thursday, including producer Robyn Kershaw, whose credits include the films Looking for Alibrandi and Bran Nue Dae along with the first three seasons of the ABC's Kath & Kim. Ms Kershaw, whose voice choked with tears at times during her evidence, said that after the Telegraph's articles in late 2017 Mr Rush was "incredibly laden with grief, to the extent he couldn't talk about anything else". She recalled meeting Mr Rush at an airport and he was "hiding behind a pillar like a child" because he feared being seen in public. Producer Robyn Kershaw outside court on Thursday. Credit:AAP "It was a very traumatic thing. It was a reality check for me about the physical trauma that Mr Rush had undergone," she said.