Very Few Actors Won’t Work With Woody Allen

In the wake of MeToo and Dylan Farrow’s CBS-TV interview, since the beginning of 2018, a number of actors have publicly declared they would no longer work with Woody Allen. Some have even donated their wages earned from A Rainy Day In New York.

Do these actors know that in 1992, Mia Farrow wanted to work with Woody Allen AFTER she has accused him of sexually abusing Dylan?

The day after she allegedly learned of her child’s molestation, Mia Farrow made a date with the costume designer of Allen’s next film (Manhattan Murder Mystery).

She accused me of child molestation on August 4th, right?” Allen told “60 Minutes” that November. “And August 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th — you know, the week after, she’s fully saying, ‘When do we begin our new movie? I’m going for my costume fitting next week’ . . . And I said, ‘Are you kidding? You’re accusing me of child molestation, and you think we’re just going to go on with the movie? . . . This is insane.’ ” (the video below begins directly with Woody Allen speaking about Mia Farrow still expecting to make a movie with him after she has accused him of child molestation):

The fact is confirmed by Kristi Groteke in her book, “Mia & Woody: Love and Betrayal” pg 225: “She had just accused her lover in public of molesting their daughter, and she expected that he would overlook this while they made a movie together. Get real, Mia.”

Eventually, Woody Allen told his lawyer to inform her that she has been replaced by an other actress (Diane Keaton).

However, most actors support Woody Allen or will work with him again.

RELATED CONTENT. A SON SPEAKS OUT by Moses Farrow.

Actors who have publicly “expressed regret” for working with Woody Allen…

The following actors have publicly “expressed regret” () for having worked with Woody Allen (in fact, some gave their salary to MeToo or TimesUp but didn’t express regrets and not all ruled out the possibility of working with him again):

Kate Winslet (Wonder Wheel), Hayley Atwell (Cassandra’s Dream, 2007), Rachel Brosnahan (Crisis in Six Scenes, 2016), Freida Pinto (You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger) Timothée Chalamet (A Rainy Day in New York, 2018), Colin Firth (Magic in the Moonlight, 2013), Greta Gerwig (To Rome With Love, 2012), Rebecca Hall (A Rainy Day in New York, 2018; Vicky Cristina Barcelona, 2008), David Krumholtz (Wonder Wheel, 2017), Griffin Newman (A Rainy Day in New York, 2018), Ellen Page (To Rome With Love, 2012), Peter Sarsgaard (Blue Jasmine, 2013), Mira Sorvino (Mighty Aphrodite, 1995), Evan Rachel Wood (Whatever Works, 2009).

If some of these names sound unfamiliar, don’t be surprised; many of them are third-class actors, even if some bigger names like Susan Sarandon, Jessica Chastain, Natalie Portman (Everyone Says I Love You) said they won’t work or won’t work again with Woody Allen.

…didn’t say why they believe Dylan Farrow rather than Woody Allen. But some have nuanced their words.

Firstly, it must be noted that Woody Allen hasn’t asked these actors to work with him, or to work with him again! Actors exclaiming “I won’t work with him again,” when Woody Allen didn’t even ask them, appear more than a little ludicrous.

Second, these actors didn’t say WHY they believe Dylan Farrow rather than Woody Allen, or the Yale-New Haven report, or the New York State Child Welfare Dept., the Supreme Court document, or prosecutor Frank Maco’s full Statement of Decision, date September 24, 1993. Or Moses Farrow’s who was present on August 4, 1992.

Third, some of these actors have subsequently nuanced their words or retracted, but the press do not report it, or worse, if the “journalist” does not respect the ethical rules of their profession, which is extremely common, they may voluntarily alters the actors’ words. For example:

Rebecca Hall: “I didn’t [donate my salary] to make a public judgment. I did it because my conscience was affected when I became aware that a woman felt indirectly invalidated by my decision to work with a man whom she believes assaulted her.”

Woody Allen speaks out on actors giving their wages

In his autobiography, Apropos of nothing, Woody Allen writes: Some even donated their checks to a cause rather than accept the tainted salary. This is not as heroic a gesture as it seems, as we can only afford to pay the union minimum, and my guess is if we paid more usual movie money, which often runs quite high, the actors might have righteously declared they’d never work with me but would possibly leave out the part about donating their salary.

Timothée Chalamet denounced Woody Allen in 2018 to increase his chances of winning an Oscar

Apropos of Nothing

According to Woody Allen’s memoir, Timothée Chalamet denounced him in 2018 because the actor thought it would increase his chances of winning an Oscar.

“Timothée afterward publicly stated he regretted working with me and was giving the money to charity, but he swore to my sister he needed to do that as he was up for an Oscar for ‘Call Me by Your Name,’ and he and his agent felt he had a better chance of winning if he denounced me, so he did.”

In 2018, Timothée Chalamet said contract blocked him from criticizing Woody Allen, supporting Dylan Farrow. It Didn’t.

On 01/16/2018, Timothée Chalamet posted on his official Instagram account that he was giving his salary from starring in the yet-to-be-released Woody Allen film, “A Rainy Day in New York,” to three nonprofit organizations. In the post, Chalamet said he was not able to comment on his decision to star in the film, or on Allen, because of “contractual obligations.”

A copy of Chalamet’s contract from a source with access to it, and a review of the document reveals that Chalamet was under no contractual obligation to remain silent about his thoughts with respect to Allen, nor does it prevent him from offering support to Dylan Farrow.

Read the full article on the HuffPost.

Kate Winslet is a shameless opportunist

Many actors support Woody Allen and don’t believe Dylan Farrow’s allegation or are ready to work with him

Sharon Stone (Stardust Memories): “But I don’t want to say I never had an untoward experience with Woody Allen,” Stone continued on the podcast. “My experiences with Woody Allen were all wonderful, he was highly professional with me. He was extraordinarily encouraging to me and I was a young woman, 19 when I started working with him.”

Elena Anaya (Rifkin’s Festival): “Honestly, if the world of cinema is like that; If because of working with a person who is fundamentally an extraordinary director and has not been found guilty of anything, they stop hiring you …”

Joy Behar (Crisis in Six Scenes): “There is evidence — the Connecticut State Police brought in an investigative team from the Yale New Haven hospital,” she said. “Their six month-long inquiry, which included medical examinations, concluded that Dylan had not been molested.”

Robert Sheehan: “I am not somebody who is swept up by public opinion. I think no good comes from condemning somebody just by hearsay. () Therefore, yes, I would work with Woody Allen if he called – even if I thought he was going to fall down dead half way through filming.”

Larry David (Whatever Works):“Yeah, it’s pretty great, it’s a fantastic book, so funny,” Mr. David said about Apropos of Nothing. “You feel like you’re in the room with him and yeah, it’s just a great book and it’s hard to walk away after reading that book thinking that this guy did anything wrong.”

Vanessa Hudgens: “I love Woody Allen films. Vicky Cristina Barcelona is one of my favorite movies.”

Elle Fanning (A Rainy Day in New York): “With Woody, I lived a wonderful experience on the set. I have only positive feelings about him and infinite admiration.” (second paragraph: “Con Woody ho vissuto un’esperienza…”)

Jeff Goldblum : “I think there is a presumption of innocence until proven guilty. (…) I would consider working with him again, until I learned something more (negative).”

Scarlett Johansson (Match Point, Scoop, Vicky Cristina Barcelona): “I love Woody. I believe him, and I would work with him any time.”

“I see Woody whenever I can, and I have had a lot of conversations with him about it. I have been very direct with him, and he’s very direct with me. He maintains his innocence, and I believe him.”

Gina Gershon (Rifkin’s Festival): “I don’t believe that to be true. You should really do all of the research and read all of the articles before believing that. It’s really important to make up your own mind and not go by what the masses claim. I’ve done extensive research and I can say with very clear conscience that I’m so happy to be working with him. This man is not a sexual predator!”

Dianne Wiest was in five Woody Allen’s movies (The Purple Rose of Cairo, Hannah and Her Sisters (won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress), Radio Days, September, Bullets Over Broadway (won her second Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress).  There was no hesitation in her answer: “People often ask me (would she work with him again) and I say, “Oh, my God, in a second.” When asked if she felt any professional uneasiness about her association with Allen after the scandals with Farrow and the children, she made clear where her loyalty lies. She says she doesn’t believe the evidence supports the allegation that Allen sexually abused Dylan Farrow, thinks the media has “obscured” the truth and doesn’t see this as having anything to do with the #MeToo movement.

Anjelica Huston was in two Woody Allen’s movies: Crimes and Misdemeanors and Manhattan Murder Mystery. After remembering that two states have investigated Woody Allen and neither of them prosecuted him, at the question: will you work with him again, she answered: “Yeah, in a second.”

Alan Alda (Everyone Says I Love You, Manhattan Murder Mystery, Crimes and Misdemeanors) “I’d work with him again if he wanted me. I’m not qualified to judge him. I don’t know all the facts. I don’t know if he’s guilty or innocent. But you can be uncertain — that’s what I go on. I just don’t have enough information to convince me I shouldn’t work with him. And he’s an enormously talented guy.”

Michael Caine (Hannah and her Sisters): “If he had a trial and someone proved he had done something, I wouldn’t do it. No. But I didn’t read of him being on trial and being found guilty or fined or sent to prison or anything. This is all things that people say. You can’t go on hearsay the whole time.” See also: Caine’s comments contrast with those he made in 2018.

Diane Keaton (Sleeper, Love and Death, Annie Hall, Interiors, Manhattan, Radio Days, Manhattan Murder Mystery): “Woody Allen is my friend and I continue to believe him.”

Alec Baldwin (Alice, To Rome With Love, Blue Jasmine): “The renunciation of him and his work, no doubt, has some purpose. But it’s unfair and sad to me. I worked w WA 3 times and it was one of the privileges of my career.”

Javier Bardem (Vicky Cristina Barcelona): “If there was evidence that Woody Allen was guilty, then yes, I would have stopped working with him, but I have doubts. I’m very shocked by this treatment. Judgments in the states of New York and Connecticut found him innocent. The legal situation today is the same as in 2007.”

“At the time I did ‘Vicky Cristina Barcelona’, the allegations were already well known for more than 10 years, and two states in the U.S. deemed he was not guilty,” Bardem said. “If the legal situation ever changes, then I’d change my mind. But for now I don’t agree with the public lynching that he’s been receiving, and if Woody Allen called me to work with him again I’d be there tomorrow morning. He’s a genius.” (master class at Thierry Fremaux’s Lumiere Festival in Lyon, France)

Ray Liotta: The actor was asked, “if you could drop everything and work with any director you’ve never worked with, who would you choose?” He immediately replied: “Woody Allen. I don’t think he did what they accuse him of. For his particular case, I don’t buy it.”

Wallace Shawn (Radio Days, Shadows and Fog, The Curse of the Jade Scorpion, Melinda and Melinda, Rifkin’s Festival): “Of the people I’ve known, he’s one of those I’ve respected most. And for that reason, I personally would have to say that it would take overwhelming evidence to convince me that he had sexually abused a child, just as it would take overwhelming evidence to convince me that Desmond Tutu, Franklin D. Roosevelt or Doris Lessing had sexually abused a child.”

On November 10, 2021, Wallace Shawn wrote Why I’m Still Willing to Work With Woody Allen.

Léa Seydoux (Midnight In Paris): “I believe that he is not always being treated correctly. An investigation was conducted, and he was not prosecuted. At some moment we must decide to trust the juridical system. I find it awful how there is some ‘trial’ being held outside the courtroom, and that people – even actors – act like he has been found guilty”, she says. “We should not persevere in anger. Sometimes a case takes on hysterical proportions, and all reason is lost. Harvey Weinstein is rightfully dealt with in a harsh way, but with Woody Allen things are certainly not as clear. I do not want to judge him. And I don’t want to be led on by some sort of consensus.”

Cate Blanchett (Blue Jasmine): “If these allegations need to be re examined, that in my understanding they’ve been through court, then I’m wholeheartedly in the support of that. Social media’s fantastic about raising awareness about issues but it’s not the judge and jury.”

 

Some others actors have chosen to be “neutral” about the sexual abuse allegation but still will work with Woody Allen

Lucy Punch (You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger) “I just don’t know… I don’t know what the truth is so I don’t feel like I can be condemning, or supportive one way or another.”

Alessandra Mastronardi (To Rome With Love) “It was a memorable experience, one of the most beautiful in my life. I knew I was working with one of the bedrocks of the movie scene. His personal history isn’t simple and people tend to trivialize too much. He’s wonderful on set, but he’s not a very chatty person. Sometimes I even thought he was thinking to recast me in a moment! Then I understood he was so silent because he had faith on me and he didn’t want to invade my space (my role as actress). Antonio Albanese and I had a scene with an improvisation and we spotted him laughing behind the camera. He said one word for me and another word for Albanese, so the sense of humor occupied the set: he’s a genius.”

Cherry Jones (A Rainy Day In New York): “And I did my homework. I went back and studied every scrap of information I could get about that period. And in my heart of hearts, I do not believe he was guilty as charged. I didn’t say that. I just said, in this heated place, there are those who are comfortable with their certainty. I am not. I don’t know the truth, but I know that if we condemn by instinct, democracy is on a slippery slope.”

Miley Cyrus (Crisis in Six Scenes): “I had moved, and the only thing that I brought into my new house was a picture of Woody Allen.” “From the way I saw him with his family, I never saw him be anything but an incredible person and a really great dad.”

Blake Lively (Café Society): “I didn’t care if it was one line, one scene, or playing a janitor. He’s one of the few filmmakers who really, really knows how to write for women. They’re fully realized women; they’re not one thing or the other. You’re not hired to be the intellect or the bimbo…”

Charlotte Rampling (Stardust Memories): Production on Stardust Memories lasted several months, with Rampling travelling in and out from Paris for extra shooting as the project (one of Woody Allen’s more experimental films) evolved. “It was a joy. He (Allen) was enchanting.”

Emily Mortimer (Match Point): “I believe in due process. I am the daughter of a criminal defence barrister and I think these things really need to go through all the legal processes before anyone can judge. I don’t really have an answer to those questions.” “I do believe he is a great artist. And as for the ins and outs, I don’t have a position yet.”

Penelope Cruz (Vicky Cristina Barcelona, To Rome with Love): “We have a collection of headlines saying this actor would work with him again, and this one said they wouldn’t – this doesn’t change anything. This doesn’t add anything good to the situation. We’re supposed to believe in justice, and this was looked at years ago, and it’s not clear. It should be looked at again, and then I can give an answer.”

Kristen Stewart (Café Society): “At the end of the day, Jesse [Eisenberg] and I talked about this. If we were persecuted for the amount of shit that’s been said about us that’s not true, our lives would be over. The experience of making the movie was so outside of that, it was fruitful for the two of us to go on with it.”

Diego Luna  (A Rainy Day in New York): Asked by a “journalist” – who was claiming that Dylan Farrow was Woody Allen’s stepdaughter before some people educated about the facts correct him – “Would you still work with him in the future”, he answered: “It’s not as simple as that. I’d have to sit with you for another half an hour to get into that.”

Jude Law (A Rainy Day in New York): “I didn’t really want to get involved, to be honest. I just don’t feel like it was my place to comment, and it’s too delicate a situation. I feel like enough has been said about it. It’s a private affair. [As for working with Allen again], I don’t know. I’d have to consider carefully.”

Antonio Banderas (You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger): “I think it is unjust [to blame Woody Allen] because we don’t have enough data for arriving to a conclusion. It goes against my principles to say: ‘This person is guilty’ a priori.'”

Caroline Aaron (Husbands and Wives, Alice, Crimes and Misdemeanors, Deconstructing Harry) :”As I said, I’ve worked with him a lot. He is really kind and I adore him, just adore him. I wrote him a letter when all the trouble started recently. I just wish I were more famous, so I could make a public statement of support, but I’m telling you, I have supreme confidence in his creativity and his character.”

Barbara Hershey (Hannah and Her Sisters): “I think it’s a shame. I think people should have fair trials and I don’t know if he did. People rushed to all kinds of judgments and that probably says more about them than what happened – nobody knows what happened, really. I like to give him the benefit of the doubt, but I don’t know what happened either.”

The following actors have also chosen NOT to denigrate Woody Allen

Christoph Waltz (Rifkin’s Festival), Emma Stone (Magic in the Moonlight, An Irrational Man), Selena Gomez (A Rainy Day in New York), Justin Timberlake (Wonder Wheel), Rachel McAdams (Midnight in Paris), Juno Temple (Wonder Wheel), Judy Davis (Husbands and Wives, Deconstructing Harry, Celebrity, To Rome with Love), Christopher Walken (Annie Hall), Sally Hawkins (Cassandra’s Dream, Blue Jasmine), Naomi Watts (You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger), Helena Bonham Carter (Mighty Aphrodite), Jessica Harper (Love and Death, Stardust Memories), Marion Cotillard (Midnight in Paris), as well as many others; it’s nearly impossible to name them all.

Actors who have won an Oscar with a Woody Allen’s movie

The video will begin directly at 2:14:16 with all the actors winning an Oscar with a Woody Allen’s movie: