Woody Allen Tells Alec Baldwin He Might End Directing Career Soon: ‘A Lot of the Thrill Is Gone’
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Woody Allen made a rare live appearance for an interview with Alec Baldwin on Baldwin’s Instagram account, which has 2.4 million followers. Allen directed Baldwin in “Alice” (1990), “To Rome With Love” (2012) and “Blue Jasmine” (2013). The actor called Allen’s films a “warm bath for me that makes everything ok.” Allen announced he is considering ending his directing career after his next movie, which will shoot in Paris.
“I’ll probably make at least one more movie. A lot of the thrill is gone,” Allen said. “When I used to do a film it’d go into a movie house all across the country. Now you do a movie and you get a couple weeks in a movie house. Maybe six weeks or four weeks and then it goes right to streaming or pay-per-view…It’s not the same…It’s not as enjoyable to me.”
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“I don’t get the same fun doing a movie and putting it in a theater,” Allen added. “It was a nice feeling to know that 500 people were seeing it once… I don’t know how I feel about making movies. I’m going to make another one and I’ll see how it feels.”
Baldwin stuck to asking questions about Allen’s book writing, from his memoir “Apropos of Nothing” to his new essay collection “Zero Gravity.” The duo avoided any controversial topics, and Allen’s Instagram Live feed kept dropping out and interrupting the conversation. The interview came to a pause three times because of technical issues.
“Are they in a room where they have the best Wifi?” Baldwin was heard asking someone off camera after Allen dropped out of the feed for a second time. “They need to be in a room with the best Wifi in the house.”
Baldwin surprised the industry after announcing June 26 that he’d be interviewing Allen, timed to the publication of Allen’s new collection of essays, “Zero Gravity.” Allen has continued to face backlash after his adopted daughter, Dylan Farrow, accused him of molesting her as a child. The allegation was at the center of HBO’s 2021 documentary series “Allen v. Farrow,” which included a never-before-seen home video of 7-year-old Farrow talking about the alleged assault shortly after she alleges it occurred. Allen has long denied the allegation and called it “untrue and disgraceful” in a statement following the release of the HBO series.
“Let me preface this by stating that I have zero interest in anyone’s judgments and sanctimonious posts here,” Baldwin wrote on Instagram ahead of the interview. “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 himself as been at the center of controversy ever since October 2021, when a prop firearm that he fired on the set of the indie film “Rust” killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins. Baldwin served as a producer on the project in addition to starring.
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