NY Daily News: Woody Allen Interview : The Nebbish 'Celebrity'.

November 15, 1998

'I'm just another kid from Brooklyn,' he says.

Woody Allen is wearing a new hat as he steps from a rainy November afternoon into the Manhattan Film Center, where he cuts all his new movies. He's dressed in autumnal colors, wools and corduroys and soft-soled Manhattan walking shoes, a pleasant smile lighting his eyes behind the trademark glasses.

At 63, this soft-spoken product of the streets of Brooklyn is eager to talk about a lot of things - his new film "Celebrity," his own celebrity, Leonardo DiCaprio, the new Sean Penn movie he's shooting around town, Mia Farrow, his marriage to Soon Yi, Bill Clinton, the NBA lockout and his beloved Brooklyn.

And - the surprising, single-biggest regret of his life.

"Celebrity" is the second film you've made about America's fixation with fame and notoriety. (The first was "Stardust Memories.") Why revisit the same theme?

Because I have been living a life involved with celebrity for many years, it's one of the things I do know about and can write about with some authority.

You explore your frustrations, but also your amusement with who becomes a celebrity. In the movie, Joey Buttafuoco is on a TV in the background as Leonardo DiCaprio goes berserk in a hotel room. Claus von Bulow's wife is referred to as the most famous coma victim of all time ...

Yeah, anyone can become a celebrity. And I have felt frustrated by my own celebrity. To me, and some other celebrities, there is a downside because we place a great value on privacy. Other celebrities have no problem with the limelight offstage, and love it. But I would be a complainer if I didn't admit the perks don't outweigh the downside. For me, it's no fun being in the public eye all the time but, being a New Yorker, I also get good tickets to the Knick games, seats for tough-to-get Broadway shows, restaurant reservations and doctors on weekends. These are the positive things about being a celebrity, and they outweigh the annoyance of giving up your privacy.

Is the public's obsession with celebrity greater than it has been in the past?

It seems to be. When I did "Stardust Memories" years ago, the same guy in the movie who wanted my autograph and adored me wound up shooting me. About a month after my movie came out, John Lennon was shot in the same situation. Fans go crazy over celebrities. They adore them irrationally and love to see them get hurt. They really like that public flagellation of the celebrities they adore - but they still love the celebrity involved. It's a complex phenomenon, and the United States really lives in the cult of celebrity because they live in an opulent country with no wars and a lot of time and money for leisure. They have a thriving theater, television industry, film business, music, painting. And sports is so enormous - as big as film, music and theater put together. So the cult of celebrity is enormous here.

When you were growing up, which celebrities did you idolize?

Ninety percent were in sports, and the other 10 percent were guys like Louie Armstrong, Humphrey Bogart, Groucho Marx and certain idols I had in show business. But most were sports figures. By the way, have you seen Jack Newfield's Sugar Ray Robinson documentary? (It airs on HBO on Dec. 8.) I'm in it, and I was happy to do it, because I was so crazy about Ray Robinson, who was an amazing fighter. I had a chance to have dinner in his house and to spend some time with him, and so I have a very positive feeling about him as an athlete and a man. He was someone I idolized and then met, and lived up to my feelings about him. Many don't live up to your expectations. I won't say who, but the ones who did are Robinson, Stan Musial, Groucho.

When you got married to Soon Yi in Europe earlier this year, you obviously felt the hunt of celebrity hounds and paparazzi, too?

When I did my jazz tour there, I felt like a rock star. In every country on the tour they surrounded my hotel. It was an unreal experience. I don't live like that. I get up, exercise, walk the streets of Manhattan relatively unbothered, shop and go to ballgames, the theater and restaurants. Perhaps in Europe, because I'm not over there that frequently, it's a big deal, and they express their demonstrative affection. And, hey, it's a big help for me in my movies, because if I didn't have that foreign support, my films wouldn't survive.

So overseas, the usually publicity-shy Woody Allen actually appreciates his own celebrity?

It's funny. Even here, I do appreciate it from foreigners. It's like being very nice to your guests and taking your family and friends more for granted. So if I'm here in New York and a local fan comes up, and if I'm in a rush or it's raining or something, and he asks me to pose for a picture or an autograph, I'll say, "Hey, I'm soaking wet and I'm late." But if someone says it in a French or Argentinian accent, my heart melts. And I always says yes, because they're guests and I'm the host and I can't say no to them.

How does Soon Yi handle the limelight?

She's reasonably graceful for a person who has never had any experience with that. She doesn't have my built-in nervous tension, so she has more equanimity in those situations. If we go to a movie theater in Turin and there's a thousand people crowding us in, she's more able to handle it than I am.

When you were directing "Celebrity," were you aware that Kenneth Branagh was playing Woody Allen with all the ellipses, fluttering hands and nervous tension?

I wrote Kenneth Branagh a letter when I sent him the "Celebrity" script. I said to him, "This part is not me. If I was younger, I would definitely not play it. When I was writing the thing, before I thought of you, I had someone like Alec Baldwin in mind. I think he would have been great doing it, but he was not available - and I want to be completely upfront about this. But this is definitely no way me. It requires a younger and more attractive person than me. Even when I was younger, I wasn't attractive enough to play this part. I need someone who's got more flair."

And, of course, Kenneth is a great actor and I thought it would be a breeze for him. And then as he was doing it, I would go over to him and say "You know, it seems to me that you're doing me. A lot." And he'd say, "I hear what you're saying, don't worry." And then guys on the crew would tell me that he was doing me. And I just sort of threw in the towel and felt, that's how he sees this character. This is how he sees him, and this is a great Shakespearean actor. What's the smartest thing to do here? Do I try to force him into a different mold, or do I go with his take on the character?

In the end, I had so much respect for him as an actor that I felt, look, I don't wanna sit down and say we gotta reshoot everything and you gotta do it my way. So that's what happened.

It must have been a little disconcerting to direct someone who was essentially doing you.

I was amazed! He's a great mimic.

His interpretation adds a sort of irony to the film, because your celebrity has rubbed off on his take of the lead character.

That is ironic. But I'll tell you a funny thing. Kenneth made a movie years ago, an ESP murder mystery with Emma Thompson. In part of that movie, the way he put his glasses on or something, I remember saying to Mia, "This guy is doing me." This was 10 years before I met him.

Speaking of Mia, has there been any more movement in you getting to see your kids?

Oh, no, no. That's history.

And you've resigned yourself to that?

I went as far as I could go. Every legal channel.

Do you ever see a possibility of you, Mia and Soon Yi sitting down to have a civil conversation?

I can always see that, because I'm basically a non-confrontational person. I can see sitting down with my worst enemies in any situation and saying, "Look, we went through a bad time, but let's have a drink. We both said some terrible things, but that's past and it's crazy to continue this." But my guess is that she wouldn't be able to, because most people aren't that way.

People see that as a fault in me. They think I'm a sucker or too forgiving. But I could sit down with Mia, I certainly could. I don't hold any real grudges. She was a terrific actress and I did some good pictures with her. Things soured after a while, but it's just not my personality to continue a feud. So if I got a phone call tomorrow saying "Let's have a drink and sit down and talk things over," well, I'd be there in a shot. It would be nice.

Great actresses love to be in your movies. Women love to go to your movies. Most of the women you've dated - like Diane Keaton - are still good friends, and you're considered a master of writing great parts for women. Why do you seem to understand women better than most male writers?

I have to credit Diane Keaton with that, because before I got into a relationship with her I couldn't do it. In "Celebrity," all the actresses - Melanie Griffith, Winona Ryder, Famke Janssen - do a great job. And Charlize Theron is a good actress, has a sense of humor, and a miraclous look. She's so hot that if she was in this room, your buttons would melt. And Judy Davis is one of the two or three best actresses in the world - maybe the best.

You also had the good fortune of casting Leonardo DiCaprio before he set sail on the Titanic, which made him one of the biggest stars in the world.

It would be nice if the near-psychotic adoration of Leonardo spilled over to this movie. In the case of Leonardo, I think the adoration is deserved on the basis of his acting. I only saw him because I went to see Diane Keaton in "Marvin's Room." I liked the picture and I said to Keaton, "Who is that kid?" She said he was a really nice kid, and a great actor. Then, when we were casting "Celebrity," his name came up as someone to play the crazy young actor in the movie. I said he'd be wonderful. Then six months later, "Titanic" opened and the world discovered him as this beautiful kid. But he's a genuine talent. He's not a flavor of the month. He can really act.

Is he a nice guy? He gets mugged in print.

I found him lovely - couldn't have been nicer to work with, sweet as could be. Cooperative, a good disposition and a great actor. He was ad-libbing all over the place, because I let my actors do that. His instincts were just great. The sentences he was making up were his, not mine, and they were great. He is definitely gonna be around for a long, long time in a big, big way.

Tell us about the picture you're shooting now.

It's with Sean Penn, Uma Thurman and Samantha Morton, set in the 1930s and it's about a musician. I'm not in it. It's a comedy/drama with a lot of music, but not a musical with singing and dancing. No title yet.

Can we move onto something infinitely more important - the Knicks?

It's a heartbreaker to me. A heartbreaker. This was the year I bought a dish and was gonna watch all the basketball games. Now I can't watch any! It's a very tough situation because my tendency is always to go with the players. And I feel I have to go with the players even now. There are people who get angry with the players and say how can I sympathize with a guy who makes $7 million a year. That's what the owners want you to feel, but it doesn't tell the real story.

These guys are amazing athletes in an entertainment field, and delivering every bit as much as Leonardo DiCaprio and whoever else you want to name. They have very short professional lives, they burn very bight for a very brief time in their lives. And then the minute something goes wrong, they're cast aside, forgotten, without sympathy. So they wanna get what they can while they can get it. The owners say they want to run the league, but they don't want to lose money. And this is a lockout. The players want to play. Some of the older guys - Barkley, Olajuwon - they can't afford to lose a year.

As an outsider, as a fan, I wish the owners would be more generous with the players.

Will it hurt basketball permanently?

I don't think so. I think the fans will return. I don't think anyone will boycott them. I certainly won't. But it is a big void in my life right now. Between shots, me and my film crew miss talking about the games. We have nothing to do in the evening. We watch football on Sunday and Monday night, or a fight when there's one on, or the Breeder's Cup. But that's it. A big hole in the night. Everybody is lost, everybody goes home in a bad mood and I think there's gonna be a lot more divorces because of the lockout. The guy can't come home after work, have dinner and crash in front of the TV set to watch some basketball. There's no unwinding process.

Have you watched this other spectator sport called Bill and Monica, and can you relate that scandal to your own - as an older man with a younger woman?

I never think about it as a younger woman. If I see a movie and see Jack Nicholson is with Helen Hunt or Fred Astaire is with Audrey Hepburn, it never means anything to me. The ages of two people in a relationship is as meaningless as their skin color or religions. If two people love each other, everything else is irrelevant. So that's never been a factor to me. But I do think Clinton has been getting a raw deal. It's ironic, but he was lucky his enemies were such lowlifes. He does get things accomplished and the Democrats did beautifully in the election. But guys like [Newt] Gingrich, who was a national joke, tried to put a contract on America. Him and Armey and Lott are the bottom of the political barrel, and Clinton really just had to sit tight and hang in, and sooner or later, lowlifes like that self-destruct.

Did you feel that - as in your own relationship with Soon Yi - the press created a fake morality, not shared by the public, about Clinton's relationship with Lewinsky?

Yes, many press people who don't have the morals of an alley cat were criticizing his morality. If I were Clinton, I would have gone in front of the American people and said, "Yes, I'm having an affair with this woman. My wife is still behind me. So it's really none of your business, and if this is not okay with you, fine, get yourself a new President. If you elected me because you wanted to pass judgment on my love life, you got the wrong boy. Go get another president." And I think people would have backed away and said, "No, no, we want you. We don't really care who you're sleeping with. If your wife doesn't care, we certainly don't."

In my case, there was also an enormous amount of fake moralizing. Mia had made some awful false accusations about me and my daughter, and I was even put on the cover of some prominent national magazines when they knew it was just a smear campaign. Nothing was proven, no substance, which was not a nice thing to do. Yet there I was on the cover. Nobody cared. That is the press in the United States. Like any other business, there's not a lot of good people in it.

The perks of your celebrity during the Mia/Soon Yi press frenzy couldn't have outweighed the downside?

At that point, no. But I feel I'm a celebrity for better or worse. If I want the Knicks tickets and the good table at the restaurant, when a piece of gossip comes up, I'm willing to take it. I can't whine.

Is it my imagination, or does the Woody Allen who used to get the bends when he so much as crossed the Hudson do more traveling these days?

Not the Hudson, past 57th Street. I travel more because Soon Yi likes to travel and I like to make her happy. But I still spend 11 months and a week in Manhattan a year.

How's married life?

It's great. I fell right into it perfectly. I love it.

Still not ruling out the possibility of having another kid?

No, not ruling it out at all. But Soon Yi just got her master's from Columbia. Now she's teaching learning- disabled kids. But it's very possible that we'll have a kid.

Are you still working on the novel you were working on last time we talked?

Finished it like a dedicated drone. I showed it to someone, and she felt it had a lot of good things in it, but that it wasn't really good enough. And since I am a complete amateur when it comes to literature, I put it in my drawer. If it were a film or a play, I could say I'm the guy who can say. I would know if it was right or wrong. But with literature, I just don't know.

You look well. How's your health?

I'm happy. In general, my family is blessed with good health. My mother just turned 92, is in the hospital because she broke her hip, but otherwise she's fine. My father will be 98 any day now, and they live a few blocks from me. And I am happy because I lucked out in my marriage. I've been blessed in my later years. Sweetland, the company I make movies for, cares about me as a filmmaker and not just as part of a financial arrangement. But being married to Soon Yi has been an absolutely great experience.

This year, you got married, had a documentary released about you, "Celebrity" opens this week, you're shooting a new movie and you were the voice of an ant in "Antz."

That was hilarious. I was having a drink with Jeff Katzenberg and he said I was the voice he needed for an ant. I've never seen "Antz," but it made more money than my last five pictures put together. I wish it was mine.

Do you have any regrets in life?

Only that I didn't heed my father's advice, and pursue a career as a second baseman. My father would have loved watching me play baseball for a living. So I sometimes think back and say if I had it to do over again, I would have tried a little harder at it. I was a very good athlete when I was a kid growing up in Brooklyn, playing in Wingate Field for the 70th Precinct PAL. People always think I'm kidding. I was as dedicated a baseball player as I was a card magician and musician. I was fanatical and could hit and field and was a very fast runner. I won gold medals for track at Midwood High. I was short, but good. But as soon as I found out I could write jokes, it was so intoxicating. I started doing it full-time, and figured I'm never gonna make the major leagues or anything. But I should have tried it. Not being a second baseman is one of my biggest regrets.

Why do so many talented people come out of Brooklyn?

It's big. A big population. A huge part of New York which is the art, entertainment, literature, theater center of the world. When I was growing up, there were a lot of ethnic families - young Italian, Irish and Jewish kids - and we grew up in the streets. Show business was a way out. We weren't scholars. We weren't gonna become doctors. We dreamed of being athletes, comedians or actors. If you were that way in Kansas, where do you go? But if you were that way on Flatbush Ave., you just had to go over the bridge and everything was at your fingertips. You had a shot at it. It was a nickel ride on the subway, get off at 42d St., eat at the Automat, Duke Ellington was playing the Paramount, look in Jack Dempsey's window. Brooklyn was just five cents away from all that.

Do you still go back to Brooklyn?

Sure. I took Soon Yi back this summer, walked through my old neighborhood, up Avenue J. My old neighborhood has gotten quite a bit Hasidic, which is new. But there was a hardware store that was the same, a bakery and drugstore from when I was a kid. I walked up Avenues L, M, N, to my old school, PS 99. I love it, love going back. I was trying to disguise myself, wearing the floppy hat, but the second I got out of the car on a secluded part of Avenue L, near Wingate Field by the old Knickerbocker ice company, that very second, a guy about 50 says, "Ahh, so how ya doin'? Back in the old neighborhood? Come back often?"

It's a wonderful old neighborhood, and I will always be from there. Just another kid from Brooklyn.