Interview: Woody Allen Part Two

By George 'El Guapo' Roush on August 8, 2008

In part two of our Woody Allen interview, Woody talks more about working with his actors, sex scenes in his movie, his inspirations growing up, his mother, music, American finance companies and directing an Opera. Woody tells all in this amusing and insightful read from one of the greatest influences in Hollywood cinema.

Click HERE if you missed part one.

At least one of the actors in this show said they were nervous when they learned they were working with you because you are such an accomplished director. Do you have a technique for putting your actors at ease? Also, you said that Scarlett Johansson could do anything. It’s a high compliment and it’s rare. Is there a role you haven’t written for her that you want to see her do?

Allen: First question, the actors should not feel ill at ease. I am the one that feels ill at ease. It’s maybe my ill at ease personality that makes them feel that way. I’m nervous to meet Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem. Also, there is a lot of nonsense that circulates about me, that they come to believe, that I don’t like to speak to anybody. They say I’m reclusive. There was a think in the New York Times magazine section last week, they did a feature on Matthew Goode, who I worked with in ‘Match Point’. He said ‘I came into the audition and someone said ‘Don’t shake hands with Woody, he doesn’t like to be touched.’ So, where these things originate I can’t imagine. I’m not incredibly social, but I’m not forbidding. I’m nervous around them. I don’t really have a way of putting them at ease. I think what happens is that they are nervous before they come in, but after they meet me for one minute, and they see I’m not threat and not anything they’ve conceived, they see I’m a push over and they can handle me effortlessly, they become relaxed. It’s nothing I do to make that happen. They see it, but I think my nerves, my shyness, could read as something that it is not. As for Scarlett goes, I never think in terms of there is something I would like to write for someone. I will say that if I ever have a part that she could play I would always go to her for them. I hope that she would be available. I do think that she is capable of anything. If you need dramatic, she’s dramatic. If you need a laugh, she can get a laugh. She can sing if you need it, she’s sexy, she’s intelligent. She is a great ace in the hole to have, and there are a lot of things she can do, and that face on the screen. She is so photogenic it’s paralyzing. I would always try and use her if I could. There is no limit for her. I now think there is no limit for Penelope either. She’s learning English much more. She is getting very, very fluid with her English. When I started with her she spoke it pretty well. Now she is really getting completely bilingual. They will be writing more and more parts for her in English speaking pictures. She will be able to score very heavily because she is a very charismatic actress.

You are in town to direct an opera? What is the difference in directing and will you work with Placido Domingo?

Allen: I didn’t want to direct anybody else’s material before. I never directed a significant thing in the theater live. The only live thing I directed were my own little one act plays. I certainly never directed on Opera. I’ve only been to about 15 of them in my life. Placido is a friend of mine. He’s been bothering me for a long time to direct an opera. Placido Domingo has spoken to me on a number of occasions to direct an opera. I always dodged it or slipped out of it. They said ‘Look, this is a one act opera that Puccini wrote and you just have to do the third one.’ It’s a small cast, it’s a one hour opera, and it’s only about 10 people. No big chorus. They said ‘You can do it, and we’ll help you.’ This was like three years ago and I thought I’d be dead in three years so I said ‘Okay.’ Well, I’m not dead so I get the call, ‘You have to come to LA and do the opera’, so tomorrow morning at 9:30 I start. I hope that the Puccini material is strong enough that I won’t get hurt. I don’t know if I can take that, there is some distance. It’s moving personally, but I’ve got to do it, and I’ll give it my best shot. I think it’s okay. It’s only 55 minutes actually. I timed it and it ran 55 minutes. I have to keep it tight for 55 minutes. I’m such a novice at it I asked people ‘When we rehearse do we sing?’ I’m still not sure how that works. So when I direct a scene am I going to have to stop and wait for the guy to sing his whole thing before I move on? I don’t know what to expect. We had a wonderful, wonderful set, and I’ll give it my best shot. I hope the material is so strong that they won’t see the flaws in me.

This is being called your sexiest movie yet. It seems like in your early movies you never had sex scenes. Can you talk about discovering sex at this point in your life?

Allen: [laughs] It’s just by chance. Everybody thinks that there is an agenda that I have. Maybe they think its certain psychological turning points in my life. It’s not really so. It just so happens that this story requires a certain amount of sensuality. There is a kissing scene, a scene between the two girls that is brief, and there isn’t really a lot of sex in the picture. It’s nothing really that I’ve discovered. Whatever is required. I just finished a picture with Larry David, Evan Rachel Wood, and Patricia Clarkson. There is sex in the movie. It’s a comedy, a romantic comedy. It’s just by chance that the next film I thought of was a musical with sex, or a very sexual picture, or if I have an idea for what I felt was a brilliant pornographic comedy idea. If I had an idea for a family comedy, it’s just whatever idea I come up with. These naturally had a little passion in it, but not much to speak of really. I turned on the television set and ‘Show Girls’ was on TV. Now that was clearly sexual. This one isn’t.

Were you comfortable directing Scarlett and Javier in that scene where they are making love in bed?

Allen: When they are kissing? They started kissing, and I thought I would be going very, very hard to make the scene extra long, beyond what you would think would be long. I wanted to have in and out of focus. They just kissed, and kissed, and kissed. Then when it was over that was it. They went their own way and there was no real…they are actors. They get paid. Kissing for a couple of minutes, I watch, and say ‘Okay, we’ll do it again.’ Then it’s over and we movie on to the next thing.

You said that you have a pessimistic view of love. For a writer and director who is so into the psychology of how people work isn’t there a side to you that thinks people change and evolve?

Allen: There is always the possibility that people will change. Real change is more rare. If you are a certain age you are pretty much a variation of that your whole life. It’s conceivable that you will change but it’s not likely. Rebecca is never comfortable, she’s never going to have an affair, and cheat on her husband. She’s all nervous and full of anxiety. She changes her clothes a million times, she can’t decide if she should kiss him, go to bed with him, should she leave. Some people are not meant for adventure or adultery. There will always be that beautiful girl who all the guys run after and she will get involved with the next poet, or factory worker would be her next action. That won’t work out, so she’ll get involved with a swimmer, and the list will go on and on. I don’t hold high chances for people changing who they are, but again I’m pessimistic. They could be correct and I could be wrong.

Which was more challenging? Writing for a different culture or characters from a different generation than yourself?

Allen: What happens is that you get a lot of help from people. I write the thing as best I can, for the generation, or gender. I just wrote it. They play it and when they play it they say ‘We would really never say this. We would never go to that nightclub. We don’t do this anymore.’ They would tell me and I would strike it then ask ‘What would you do?’ Then I add it and let them do that thing instead. I never think in terms of writing for a culture or for a generation. I just write the story so that it works. When you are doing it you would be amazed how many people chime in with corrections. Everyone from the cameraman to the guy delivering coffee. It could be the actor or actress. All of that helps to focus the thing, so that it works by the time you finish, and it’s reasonably accurate.

 

What life lessons did you learn as a little boy that still serve as a strong source of inspiration for you even now?

Allen: I think that the biggest life lesson I learned as a boy that has helped me and is still with me is that you really have to discipline yourself to do the work. If you want to accomplish something you can’t spend a lot of time hemming and hawing, putting it off, making excuses for yourself, and figuring ways. You have to actually do it. I have to go home every single day, know where I am, what I’m doing, and including 45 minutes of practice on my Clarinet because I want to play. I have to do it, I want to write, so I get up in the morning, go in and close the door and write. You can’t string paper clips, and get your pad ready, and turn your phone off, and get this, get coffee made. You have to do the stuff. Everything in life turns out to be a distraction from the real thing you want to do. There are a million distractions and when I was a kid I was very disciplined. I knew that the other kids weren’t. I was the one able to do the thing, not because I had more talent, maybe less, but because they simply weren’t applying themselves. As a kid I wanted to do magic tricks. I could sit endlessly in front of mirror, practicing, practicing, because I knew if you wanted to do the tricks you’ve got to do the thing. I did that with the Clarinet, when I was teaching, I did that with writing. This is the most important thing in my life because I see people striking out all the time. It’s not because they don’t have talent, or because they don’t want to be, but because they don’t put the work in to do it. They don’t have the discipline to do it. This was something I learned myself. I also had a very strict mother who was no nonsense about that stuff. She said ‘If you don’t do it, then you aren’t going to be able to do the thing.’ It’s as simple as that. I said this to my daughter, if you don’t practice the guitar, when you get older you wouldn’t be able to play it. It’s that simple. If you want to play the guitar, you put a half hour in everyday, but you have to do it. This has been the biggest guiding principle in my life when I was younger and it stuck. I made the statement that 80 percent of life is showing up. People used to always say to me that they wanted to write a novel, and the couple of people that did it were 80 percent of the way to having something happen. All the other people struck out without ever getting that pack. They couldn’t do it, once you do it, you write your script, or novel, you are more than half way towards something good happening. What I am saying is that it’s a life lesson.

I wanted to ask about the music in the movie. How much of a part does it play in directing?

Allen: The music to me is always the most pleasurable part of the movie. You are finished cutting it, you watch and there is no sound or music, it’s a little latent. Then suddenly you hear the recording and I have everything from Beethoven to Louis Armstrong and anything I want. I can drop it in and suddenly the movie gets a lift that is great. I picked out Spanish pieces that were very, very beautiful. The main song ‘Barcelona’ was a funny story. I get a million things in the mail everyday. I don’t look at them, they are scripts, music, and things. I’m not supposed to look at them. I never do. But I was running out to shoot and just as I walked out my door this recording had been slipped under my door. I took it with me, even though is shouldn’t, I usually throw them in a pile, and my assistant returns them. I took it with me as something to play in the car. I put it in the car, put it on, and it was the opening song. I thought ‘My God, I’m half way through the picture, but this is the music I want for the picture.’ We contacted with people and they were thrilled. They were not established people or anything. They had nothing, they wanted exposure of the song. The song is very, very catchy. Everybody loves it, it’s a hit in Barcelona, and they are making a video of it there now. It was just by chance that it happened.

The companies that financed this picture have offered you three more pictures. Can you address how that will guide you artistically?

Allen: The company who did this picture is a very nice group of people who backed the film. I was putting together my next film and we spoke to them. They said they would love to back another film of mine. We had been talking to somebody else about doing three films. We said to them ‘We’re on the verge of making a deal with these people for three films.’ They said ‘We’ll make three films with you.’ I said ‘That’s fine, but I can’t do three more films in Barcelona.’ So they said ‘You can make them anywhere in the world you want to make them. We just want to be the producers, we want to finance the films.’ They were lovely people, we all had a very nice experience, and so I said ‘Sure.’ They don’t have a studio system in Europe. In the United States they would be saying to me ‘We’ll give you the money to make the film, but we’re not just bankers.’ They are in fact just bankers, but they think they are not just bankers. They want to participate, cast, read the script. ‘This is a great script, but you have no second act.’ This is stuff that they are utterly unqualified to judge, because even people that do this for a living have a hard time making those calls. They make them wrong all the time. The money people in the United States want to participate. I can get money in the United States if I want to let them read my script, sit in with me on casting, and I didn’t want to do that. In Europe there is not studio system. They are just bankers. ‘We don’t know about that stuff. You make the film. You cast it, we don’t read the script. We just want to put up the money and make some money on it.’ There are tax things and whatever mischief they get involved with, so it’s a pleasure. Will it be fine if I make two more pictures for them and they lose their shirt? Will they stay nice to me? Maybe they will, I don’t know, but maybe not. Lots of times they starts off with a lot of hugs and kisses ‘We are artists we love art.’ And then you make a picture that tanks and they don't like you. I don’t know. My experience with these people has been very positive so far and they seem like lovely people. I have great faith in them.

From working with two Spanish actors in Spain was there anything that you learned from that culture?

Allen: They take themselves very seriously. Javier and Penelope are very serious actors. I always found that amusing, they are so great, and like most serious actors like Robert De Niro, they think they are great because they do all that work. They are born great. They are great when they wake up in the morning. They don’t have to do all that work and they would still be great. I never rehearsed with any of the actors. I never talked to them about the plot or anything. I just show up and do it. I get a lot of great performances simply by hiring great people. Javier and Penelope were constantly talking about the plots but not with me. They talked about it with each other. They were rehearsing all the time, their lines, they rehearsed themselves. I found that amusing. They think that’s what is making them great. What is making them great is that they just are great. Javier could walk into this room, never having seen anything before, and act the part out. He would be charismatic and mesmerizing. It’s just built into him. It’s the same with Robert De Niro, or Jack Nicholson. It’s just there for a lot of actors. I found that the Spanish actors took it very seriously. They were very formal and serious about the work. I found that amusing myself. In the end it doesn’t bother me.

At the end of the interview I asked him if he would consider doing a DVD commentary for this movie, but he said he never does them, that the movie should speak for itself. Oh well!

Vicki Cristina Barcelona opens in theaters August 15^th. Look for my review next week.

E-mail:george@latinoreview.com

Source:Latinoreview

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