He says he’s absolutely never used drugs (“I can barely bring myself to take two Extra Strength Excedrin”), confesses he has no interest in travel, popular music, or technology, and cops to being a creature of habit: “When Elaine’s was open in New York, I ate every dinner [there], seven nights a week, for 10 [to] 12 years”.
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“She enjoyed being introduced to many, many things that I knew from experience, and I enjoyed showing her those things”.
For years, criticism has followed Allen for that relationship because Previn was in her early 20s and viewed by many to be like his stepdaughter, even though Allen and Farrow never married.
Seventy nine year old Allen believes the secret to their successful relationship comes down to his “paternal” nature.
He said: “I started the relationship with her and I thought it would just be a fling“.
But Allen’s take on the relationship wasn’t one shared by Previn, at least not in 1992 when she told Time, “To think that Woody was in any way a father or stepfather to me is laughable”.
‘They thought nothing of it, since Soon-Yi had yet to receive her first phone call from a boy, ‘ Orth wrote.
He goes on to say of their dynamic, “I liked her youth and energy”.
Do you feel that way now with [your wife] Soon-Yi Previn? “She flourished. It was just a good luck thing”.
Their relationship – which started while he was dating Farrow – has remained a constant fascination in the media since it became public in 1992. He saw it as a “fling” but the longer it went on, Woody began to see how well suited he and Soon-Yi are.
“Then we started going together, then we started living together, and we were enjoying it. I’m 35 years older, and somehow through no fault of mine or hers, the dynamic worked”. Two people come along and they have a trillion exquisite needs and neuroses and nuances and they have to mesh, and if one of them doesn’t mesh, it causes a lot of trouble.
Filled with typically caustic, amusing and sad observations about life and art, Woody Allen’s latest interview with NPR also contains a rare segment of the director – who has (somewhat) weathered accusations of child molestation – talking about his personal life. If the reviews are bad, they don’t come.
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Woody has in the past vehemently denied the accusations, but he responded to the claims once again during the interview with NPR, saying simply: “It has no meaning in the way I make movies”. It wouldn’t matter to me, aside from the royalties to my kids, if they took all my films and dumped them. “If I come out with a film they don’t want to see, they don’t come”.
