SCOTT SIMON, Host:
The quintessential New Yorker has actually made his last three films in London and has had some of his best reviews in recent years. Mr. Allen's new film, "Cassandra's Dream," stars Colin Farrell and Ewan McGregor as two brothers who nursed their dreams like a dwindling thimble of scotch.
WOODY ALLEN: I was working on a story about two brothers, actually, a whole family who is completely dependent on their successful uncle.
SIMON: Mm-hmm.
ALLEN: Then, it occurred to me that they all have something that they want from him. But what if the uncle had a real serious problem and he was the one that beat them to the punch, and he spoke about his needs. And from that, everything grew quite easily.
(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE "CASSANDRA'S DREAM")
COLIN FARRELL: (As Terry) I can't do it. I can't.
EWAN MCGREGOR: (As Ian) No, we're going to do it, Terry, because Uncle Howard needs us to do this very badly.
FARRELL: (As Terry) Oh, let's not play games, Ian. You're thinking of us. Well, we cannot have it.
MCGREGOR: (As Ian) I'm not playing games, Terry. Your whole life is in the toilet unless you've got some way of paying off a 90,000-pound debt.
FARRELL: (As Terry) I'm not as cool as you are, Ian.
MCGREGOR: (As Ian) I am not cool, Terry. I am fighting very hard not to panic. But this is a way out for me, too.
ALLEN: And then I had to figure out what kind of characters would be so dependent on the person. So the father had a failing restaurant. One brother worked for him. The other brother gambled and worked in a garage. And it wouldn't have worked if the brothers were successful and opulent. They wouldn't be dependent upon him for any kind of largesse. So there would be no way he could prevail on them for a favor.
SIMON: It seems like they have just enough success for their dreams not to be ludicrous.
ALLEN: Right.
SIMON: Not fantasies.
ALLEN: Right. They're not wildly deluded. I mean, there is no reason to think that the character that Ewan plays couldn't succeed. Of course, as with most people, most of our dreams don't really work out.
SIMON: You said most of us don't fulfill our dreams.
ALLEN: Mm-hmm.
SIMON: Is that true of you?
ALLEN: For me, it was not true of. In spades, I have fulfilled just about all of my dreams. I've become a film director. I was a comedian. I've played New Orleans jazz all over the world despite my utter mediocrity at it. I've played baseball in Dodge's stadium and was flied out to by Willie Mays. But that's very unusual, and I'm very mindful of the fact that it's been sheer luck and that most people don't have that kind of luck. I've just been fortunate.
SIMON: Do you have a lot of characters running around in your head at any given time?
ALLEN: Yes. Many, many times when I'm shooting a film, the idea for another one will come to me, just random, as a non sequitur. I'll be sitting around and I'll see an item on the newspaper about a man who've committed a tax fraud or something. And I'll think that'd be an interesting idea for a movie or - and I write it down. And when the time comes to write, I have a half dozen or maybe more ideas scratched out and I don't have to begin in that terrible way of not having anything to begin you're thinking on, which is really unpleasant.
SIMON: You're known for doing a lot of master shots...
ALLEN: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
SIMON: ...as they're called, which is the wide shot. The actors - it would go on for several minutes, not cutting to the closer shot. Why do you do that? Are you contrast of doing it, you must be at this point, more than other director?
ALLEN: No. Now, you'll think of being facetious, but I'm not. I do it and have always done it out of sheer laziness, the tedium of making a film, of getting a scene - let's say a one page talk scene - and to shoot a three shot then shoot your close-up and her close-up and my close-up and this goes in. Now, we're here for all day and maybe a day and half, shooting the same scene. It's so boring, is expensive and so boring that I found if I could do it in a master shot and get it to work, I could do it and be finished with it, the actors like it. They don't have to do it over and over. And so it evolved into what's perceived as a style, which, in fact, is just laziness and frugality.
SIMON: Does it let you make more pictures, in a sense, because you're able to...
ALLEN: Yes. You know, the average budget for a Hollywood film, I'm told, is - just the average film is like $40 million. And they've go all the way up to 60, 90, a hundred. But I make all my films for 15 million. And I can make them quickly. People that finance them don't really ever get hurt. So consequently, they let me work very freely because nobody is really at much risk.
SIMON: What about the collegiality of filmmaking? Is that part of what you enjoy, or do you have to?
ALLEN: Well, you know, it's a mixed blessing because you work close, close, close with a group of people for a period of time and then suddenly...
(SOUNDBITE OF THUMB SNAPPING)
SIMON: Yeah.
ALLEN: ...it vanishes. And everybody feels bad for, you know, a few hours.
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)
ALLEN: I mean, and you...
SIMON: You exchange phone numbers, right, and all that stuff.
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)
ALLEN: Well, yeah. The next morning, it's fine. But it's not fine that day. Be - for instance, I'm embarking on a film, so I'm working with the crew and with the actors. And 7 o'clock in the morning, I see them and we're with each other every second of the day. We're trying things out and we're working harder, then suddenly, it's the last day, the last shot, and then, there's always a little wrap party or a little goodbye drink. And the next morning you wake up and everyone is already on their planes to Africa and California in different places and it's forgotten. I have never made permanent friends with anyone from movies.
SIMON: Really?
ALLEN: Scarlett Johansson, who I have done three pictures with, feels that I'm the most antisocial person that she's worked with. And I always insist that I'm not antisocial. I'm just not social. I don't know. It's just personality, my personality.
SIMON: Have you not, at least on one or two occasions in your life, had well- known longstanding romantic relationships...
ALLEN: Oh, yes. I've been - I was lucky in that way, too.
SIMON: ...with people who have been in your film. But with people who've been in your film.
ALLEN: Yes. I don't count those exactly as friendships, you know, in the sense, you know, guys I can could up and you go to the basketball game which is something. I've had some wonderful romances in my life with the wonderful and beautiful women. And they've made real contributions to my life and to my work. And you know, and I've been very lucky that way. I mean, I'm really, really lucky.
SIMON: This is just dime-store pop psychology.
ALLEN: Mm-hmm.
SIMON: But is that why you make films or in show business, in the theatre because, in a sense, it forces you to have relationship that at least have some of the trappings of friendship?
ALLEN: When I grew up, I found I could escape on the other side of the camera that world doesn't exist for real. But when I get a chance to work for months with very beautiful women, very handsome, witty men, they're in costumes, the music is (unintelligible).
SIMON: But in part, they're witty because you write their lines.
ALLEN: And so I have escaped into movies in a way that I've done when I was younger. But I can't duplicate now that I'm older because I'm wiser than I was when I was younger. I can't sit in a movie house and think that Humphrey Bogart is really that tough and that wonderful. I don't think people are. So I'm able to fabricate the dreams myself and then participate in them.
SIMON: What answer do you have for people who say I wish he'd make a funny movie again, Mr. Allen?
ALLEN: Well, I'm trying. I mean, this spring, I'm going to try and make a funny movie. You know, I'm - it was interesting. You know, people that were saying that to me. And I made a couple of funny movies but not many people came to see them. "Small Time Crooks" was a funny movie. And a movie more than I thought was one of my funniest movies really "Hollywood Ending," nobody came to see. That was a natural idea. It wouldn't have been a great idea for Chaplin or Buster Keaton or something. I played a blind film director, and I did it well. I thought I think I was the only person that ever played a blind person in the movies who was not nominated for an Academy Award.
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)
ALLEN: And the picture - you know, the picture came out very well. But nobody saw it. And then people would then be saying to me, well, these pictures are too light. You should be doing more serious things. But I wanted to do them. I enjoy doing comic films and I do have - I think a funny comedy idea for this spring in New York. And I am going to do it. And then, if it's successful, great. If it's not, I'm sure people will say, oh, he should be doing things like "Cassandra's Dream" or "Match Point." There have much more substance to them.
SIMON: You are about 70?
ALLEN: Seventy-two.
SIMON: Okay.
ALLEN: I was 72, December 1st.
SIMON: Happy birthday.
ALLEN: Oh, thank you.
SIMON: Do you think you've learned anything about how to persist, how to keep creating, how to keep challenging yourself?
ALLEN: Don't read your reviews; don't believe them when they tell you you're great; don't worry if they tell you you're no good; don't get caught up with awards; don't get caught up with all that peripheral nonsense of the business - grosses, high grosses or low - just shut up and make your movies and that really works fine. That's the only thing I learned. I learned it many years ago - I was young. And I never learned anything since and I've never learned anything of real value in my life.
SIMON: Mr. Allen, thank you so much for your time.
ALLEN: Thank you.
SIMON: This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Scott Simon.