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Let's face it: The two big guns this summer are Spider-Man and Attack of the Clones, and who among us wasn't praying that at least one of the pair would be tolerable? The fact that both features are not only watchable but also inspired almost seems like a miracle, considering today's large turnout of big-budget busts. I don't know about you, but cinematically speaking, I'm so giddy over the early results that I'm ready to call it a day and spend the rest of the summer basking on the beach. *TRIPLE THREAT
Woody Allen (seen here with Treat Williams, Tea Leoni and Debra Messing) again assumes the mantle of writer-director-actor for his latest project, Hollywood Ending
(John Clifford/DreamWorks)
Allen Off ScreenNYC legend takes on HollywoodBy Felicia Feaster
Woody Allen has become an American icon -- an unchanging cultural commodity with instant brand recognition like Hugh Hefner or Colonel Sanders. So the experience of interviewing Allen face to face is distinctly surreal. Like the characters in his 1985 The Purple Rose of Cairo, it feels as though one is interacting with the movie screen, talking to a persona rather than a person.
In his latest film, Hollywood Ending, Allen blurs the line between reality and fantasy even more, playing filmmaker Val Waxman, who's been engaged to direct a movie about New York by a Hollywood studio, Galaxy Pictures.
Creative Loafing: Most directors are content to stand back and let the film fiction unfold without them, but you continually insert yourself into your films as a performer. Where do you think that impulse comes from?
Woody Allen: When I started, I was both a writer and a stand-up comedian. So I have no enormous impulse to act. If I never acted again it wouldn't bother me. But I started that way and sort of habitually drifted along doing it. It wouldn't bother me if I had a phone call tomorrow from Dustin Hoffman saying he would play all my roles from now on. I would be very happy.
Is that who you imagine playing you?
Well, I know he could play me better than I could play me.
Has there ever been anyone you really wanted in one of your films who wouldn't participate?
I wanted to get Jack Nicholson in Hannah and Her Sisters. And he wanted to do it, but he had a commitment. So I had to resort to using an English actor, Michael Caine, who I love, but I just didn't want to get an English actor really.
Is there some project that you've always wanted to do?
I always wanted to make a big jazz movie. I made Sweet and Lowdown but that was a small jazz movie. With big prices. But I'd like to make a big jazz movie, but the costs are so prohibitive, because you're working with a lot of music, musicians, song rights and a lot of period work. The jazz story is very circuitous and so it would cost a fortune to make.
Do you think your relationship to Hollywood is as adversarial as it's portrayed in Hollywood Ending?
It's not adversarial because I never worked in Hollywood, and they don't take me seriously in any way. They've been very nice to me, they're not bad people, but I'm not someone they're too interested in because I don't bring in high profits... I love to tease them, because they have a completely different lifestyle than the East Coast and I could never live out there. Not that I hate it, or hate the people. I just don't like that kind of weather. It would be tough for me to live in sunshine day after day and no change of seasons.
Do you find you are consistently looking for a shared quality in the women who star next to you, like Tea Leoni?
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