Actress Eliza Dushku recently revealed that she was sexually assaulted by a stunt coordinator on the set of True Lies — she was 12 at the time. Now, the movie’s director James Cameron came out in support for her.

“Eliza is very brave for speaking up,” James told reporters at the Television Critics Association’s winter press tour on Saturday. “Had I known about it, there would’ve been no mercy.”

Read James’s comments in full below:

“I just heard about it. I haven’t given a lot of thought to the specific situation today — I just heard about it, but obviously Eliza is very brave for speaking up. I think all the women are that are speaking up and calling for a reckoning now. I think this has been endemic throughout human systems, not just Hollywood, but because Hollywood deals with— women who were victims 10, 15, 20 years ago are famous today, so they get to have a louder voice when they come forward, so bravo for them for doing it. And I’m glad Eliza did that.

It’s just heartbreaking that it happened to her. I know the other party — not well, he hasn’t worked for me since then. The fact that this was happening under our noses and we didn’t know about it, going forward, it’s important for all industries, certainly Hollywood, to create a safe avenue for people to speak up, that they feel safe, and that anybody who might be a predator or an abuser knows that that mechanism is there, that it’s encouraged, and that there’s no shame around it, and that there will be consequences. I think we all collectively, just as the human race, have to do that. I don’t think this is a Hollywood problem. I think that Hollywood is in the unique position of actually shining a spotlight on it, as Hollywood has historically done on a lot of social issues. It’s kind of one of the things we do and do well.

This is a great moment in history, unfortunately it’s founded on personal tragedy for so many of these women. This is not a reckoning for Hollywood, this is not a reckoning for America, this is a reckoning for the human race. This shit has been going on since Day 1. So whenever there’s a male in a position of power, and he’s got a piece missing and doesn’t understand the consequences of what he’s doing — and maybe out of this can come some education that can pull some man who would otherwise go down that path back from the brink as well. Because I think a lot of it has to come from some kind of lack of empathy, they’re clearly not feeling what this is going to mean for this person further down the line. Hopefully we’ll be making films about this stuff and we’ll put something in place as industry practice to do it as much as we can to prevent it. Because this is happening right now. Directors are historically pretty oblivious to the interpersonal things that are happening on their set, because they are just focused — and I’m probably one of the worst offenders of that, being focused on what I’m doing creatively. But had I known about it, there would’ve been no mercy. Now, especially that I have daughters, there’s really no mercy.”