Woody Allen told Alec Baldwin in an interview Tuesday that his upcoming film might be his last, saying that “a lot of the thrill is gone” for him as a director.
Allen, 86, spoke with Baldwin via Instagram Live to promote his new collection of short stories titled “Zero Gravity” that was just released this month. The congenial interview touched on Allen’s writing process, his love of The New Yorker and music, as well as other reflections on his film and comedy career.
Baldwin did ask Allen about his future as a filmmaker, and Allen revealed that he is prepping another film that he would shoot this fall in Paris, though he did not reveal any other details. The film would be Allen’s 50th in his career following last year’s “Rifkin’s Festival,” and he said that should it be his final movie, he would still turn to writing other books or plays.
Allen explained that the reason he’s grown disenchanted with movie making has much to do with the after-effects of the pandemic and the impact of streaming changing the nature of how people watch his films.
“Now you do a movie, you get a couple of weeks in a movie house…and then it goes right to streaming and pay per view,” Allen said. “But it’s not the same as when I went into the movie business, so it’s not as enjoyable to me as it was. I don’t have the same fun…It was a nice feeling to know that 500 people were watching it at once.”
Baldwin followed up and asked if he would consider writing screenplays for others to direct, which Allen said he would never do.
Comments were disabled during the interview. The interview was also marred by some technical difficulties, in which Allen’s feed cut briefly out on several occasions. The interview averaged around 2,500 people at a time.
Baldwin has worked with Allen on several occasions, including on “Blue Jasmine” in 2013 and “To Rome With Love” in 2012. Baldwin also talked about his love of Allen’s 2020 autobiography “Apropos of Nothing,” as well as many of Allen’s movies. But Baldwin in the interview made no mention of Dylan Farrow or the sexual assault allegations that have marred Allen’s career.
You can watch the full interview, which ran just under an hour, below via Baldwin’s Instagram.
Allen has been a persona non grata with most of Hollywood after accusations that he had sexually assaulted his then 7-year-old daughter Dylan Farrow in 1992 resurfaced in the wake of the #MeToo movement. Allen has repeatedly denied the accusations, including most recently in a CBS News interview from last year.
Since then, Amazon canceled a 4-film deal with the “Annie Hall” director and four-time Oscar winner, and numerous stars all disavowed having worked with him, including Kate Winslet (“Wonder Wheel”), Mira Sorvino (“Mighty Aphrodite”), Elliot Page (“To Rome With Love”) and Colin Firth (“Magic in the Moonlight”). Allen has since then had trouble finding North American distribution for his films, including his most recent project “Rifkin’s Festival.”
Baldwin’s interview of Allen also follows HBO’s 2021 documentary series “Allen vs. Farrow,” which delved deeper into the accusations and included new and previously unseen footage from Dylan Farrow, Mia Farrow and other family and friends that bolstered the case against Allen.
Baldwin when he announced the interview on Sunday seemed to acknowledge how the documentary has shifted the conversation.
“Let me preface this by stating that I have ZERO INTEREST in anyone’s judgments and sanctimonious posts here,” Baldwin wrote. “I am OBVIOUSLY someone who has my own set of beliefs and COULD NOT CARE LESS about anyone else’s speculation. If you believe that a trial should be conducted by way of an HBO documentary, that’s your issue.”
Baldwin is facing his own reputational firestorm after an on-set shooting during the filming of “Rust” last year killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins. The criminal case is still under investigation by New Mexico authorities, and he is also the subject of several other civil lawsuits involved with the deadly accident.
