Biography for
Woody Allen More at IMDbPro »

Date of Birth

1 December 1935, Brooklyn, New York, USA

Birth Name

Allan Stewart Konigsberg

Height

5' 5" (1.65 m)

Mini Biography

Woody Allen was born on December 1, 1935, as Allen Konigsberg, in Brooklyn, New York. At the age of 15, he started selling one-liners to gossip columns. After working a while as a stand up comedian, he was hired to write What's New Pussycat (1965) in 1965. He directed his first film a year later, What's Up, Tiger Lily? (1966) in 1966.

IMDb Mini Biography By: David McCollum

Mini Biography

Woody Allen was born December 1, 1935 in Brooklyn, New York. As a young boy, he became intrigued with magic tricks and playing the clarinet, two hobbies that he continues to do today.

He broke into show business at age 15 when he started writing jokes for a local paper, receiving $200 a week and pumping out an estimated 2000 jokes a day. He later moved on to write jokes for talk shows, but felt that his jokes were being wasted. His agents, Charles Joffe and Jack Rollins convinced him to start doing stand-up and telling his own jokes. Eventually, he reluctantly agreed and, although he initially performed with such fear of the audience that he would cover his ears when they applauded his jokes, he eventually became very successful doing this.

After performing on stage for a few years, he was approached to write a script for Warren Beatty to star in: "What's New Pussycat?" and would also have a moderate role as a character in the film. As production was ongoing for the film, Woody gave himself more and better lines and left Beatty with less compelling dialogue. Beatty inevitably quit the project and was replaced by Peter Sellers, who demanded all the best lines and screen time. It was from this experience that Woody realized that he could not work on a film without complete control over its production.

Woody's theoretical directorial debut was in "What's Up, Tiger Lily?" which was a Japanese spy flick that he dubbed over with his own comedic dialogue about spies searching for the secret recipe for egg salad. His real directorial debut came the next year in the mockumentary "Take the Money and Run." He has written, directed and more often than not starred in about a film a year ever since, while simultaneously writing more than a dozen plays and several books of comedy.

While best known for his romantic comedies of "Annie Hall" and "Manhattan," Woody has made many transitions in his films throughout the years, transitioning from his "early, funny ones" of "Bananas," "Love and Death" and "Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Sex But Were Afraid To Ask;" to his more storied and romantic comedies of "Annie Hall," "Manhattan" and "Hannah and Her Sisters;" to the Bergman-esque films of "Stardust Memories" and "Interiors;" and then on to the more recent, but varied works of "Crimes and Misdemeanors," "Husbands and Wives," "Mighty Aphrodite," "Celebrity" and "Deconstructing Harry;" and finally to his film of the last decade, which vary from the light comedy of "Scoop," to the self-destructive darkness of "Match Point" and, most recently, to the cinematically beautiful tale of "Vicky Cristina Barcelona."

Although his stories and style has changed over the years, his views on art and his mastery of filmmaking leaves him as one of the best filmmakers of our time.

IMDb Mini Biography By: Michael Castrignano

Spouse

Soon-Yi Previn	(22 December 1997 - present) 2 children
Louise Lasser	(2 February 1966 - 1969) (divorced)
Harlene Rosen	(1954 - 1959) (divorced)

Trade Mark

Frequently plays a neurotic New Yorker.

Frequently casts himself, Diane Keaton, Mia Farrow.

Frequently casts Judy Davis. and Scarlett Johansson,

A lot of his movies feature at least one character who is a writer. This is often Woody himself.

Nearly all of his films start and end with white-on-black credits, set in the Windsor typeface, set to jazz music, without any scrolling.

Films his dialog using long, medium-range shots instead of the typical intercut close-ups

His films are almost all set in New York City.

His characters (that he plays himself) are often a semi-famous, semi-successful film/tv writer, director, or producer... or a novelist

His thick black glasses, the same type since the 1960s.

From Stardust Memories (1980) through Melinda and Melinda (2004), frequently and almost exclusively employs Dick Hyman to contribute musical arrangements, incidental music, and piano accompaniment.

From Sleeper (1973) until Cassandra's Dream (2008), almost never has his movies scored, preferring to use selections from his vast personal record collection.

Billing his actors alphabetically on opening credits.

Trivia

Dated Diane Keaton.

His adopted daughter Bechet Dumaine, named after Sidney Bechet, was born in December 1998.

Ranked #43 in Empire (UK) magazine's Top 100 Movie Stars of All Time list (October 1997).

After his separation from Mia Farrow, they started a long public legal battle for their three children which was eventually won by Farrow. Allen was denied visitation rights with Dylan O'Sullivan Farrow and could only see his biological son, Satchel, under supervision. Moses Farrow chose not to see his father.

Speaks French.

Refuses to watch any of his movies once released.

He and former lover Mia Farrow had three children: Moses Farrow (adopted son, aka Misha), Dylan O'Sullivan Farrow (adopted daughter, aka Mallone), and Satchel Farrow (biological son, b. 1988, aka Ronan).

Suspended from New York University.

He loves Venice, and helped to raise funds to rebuild the Venetian theater La Fenice, which was destroyed by a fire.

Chosen by Empire magazine as one of the 100 Sexiest Stars in film history (#89) (1995).

Adopted his second daughter Manzie Tio Allen, named after Manzie Johnson, a drummer with Sidney Bechet's band, after she had been born in Texas. (February 2000).

Brother of Letty Aronson.

Was once invited to appear with the Royal Shakespeare Company. Stanley Kubrick also considered casting him in Sydney Pollack's part in Eyes Wide Shut (1999).

Among his biggest idols are Ingmar Bergman, Groucho Marx, Federico Fellini, Cole Porter, and Anton Chekhov.

One of the most prolific American directors of his generation, he has written, directed, and more often than not starred in a film just about every year since 1969.

Accused British interviewer Michael Parkinson of having a morbid interest in his private life and rejected questions about the custody battle for his children during his appearance on the BBC's "Parkinson" (1971) in 1999.

Born at 10:55 PM EST.

Despite the advancement of sound technology, all of his films are mixed and released in monaural sound, although later ones have a mono Dolby Digital mix.

Made what was apparently his first and probably his last appearance at the Oscars in Hollywood to make a plea for producers to continue filming their movies in New York after the 9/11 tragedy (2002).

Wrote the concept for the film Hollywood Ending (2002) on the back of a matchbook. Years later, he found the matchbook with the notes for the film on it and made the film.

Attended the Cannes Film Festival for the first time to receive the Palm of Palms award for lifetime achievement (2002).

He has more Academy Award nominations (14) for writing than anyone else, all of them are in the Written Directly for the Screen category.

After completing his first musical, Everyone Says I Love You (1996), he stated that he'd like to do another in the future with an all-original score. Since making that statement, however, nothing has yet to materialize.

In addition to being a comedian, musician and filmmaker, he is also a respected playwright.

Some sources have incorrectly referred to his formal professional name as Woodrow. In his stand-up days, he referred to himself as Heywood.

Graduated from Midwood High School at Brooklyn College.

Son of bookkeeper Martin Konigsberg (December 25, 1900-January 13, 2001) and his wife Nettie Konigsberg (November 8, 1906-January 27, 2002).

Biography in "Who's Who in Comedy" by Ronald L. Smith, pp. 13-16. New York: Facts on File, 1992. ISBN 0816023387

Was voted the 19th greatest director of all time by Entertainment Weekly.

Has been nominated or won 136 awards, more than Charles Chaplin, Buster Keaton, and Harold Lloyd combined.

Biography in: John Wakeman, editor. "World Film Directors, Volume Two, 1945-1985." Pages 20-29. New York: The H.W. Wilson Company, 1988.

Has a look-alike puppet in the French show "Les guignols de l'info" (1988).

Directed Carrie Fisher in Hannah and Her Sisters (1986) and Natalie Portman in Everyone Says I Love You (1996). This makes him the only director other than George Lucas who has worked with both actresses.

Ranked #4 in Comedy Central's 100 Greatest Stand-Up Comedians of All Time.

Biological son, Ronan Farrow, graduated from college at 15 and was accepted into Yale Law School.

Both of his grandfathers were immigrants, one of Austro-Jewish descent and the other of Russo-Jewish descent.

Longtime fan and season ticket holder of the NBA's New York Knicks.

Although he is barely interested in awards, he's one of the Academy's favorites - his 14 Oscar Nominations for Best Original Screenplay as of 2005 are a record for that category, and puts him ahead of Billy Wilder, who had 19 combined Oscar nominations for Writing and Directing. With 21 nominations in the combination of the top-three categories--acting, directing and writing--he holds the record there as well.

Directed 15 different actors in Oscar-nominated performances: Diane Keaton, Geraldine Page, Maureen Stapleton, Mariel Hemingway, Michael Caine, Dianne Wiest, Martin Landau, Judy Davis, Chazz Palminteri, Jennifer Tilly, Mira Sorvino, Sean Penn, Samantha Morton, Penélope Cruz, and himself. Keaton, Caine, Wiest, Sorvino, and Cruz won Oscars for their performances in one of his movies.

Is a fan of Alfredo Zitarrosa, one of the best Uruguayan musicians.

Ranked #10 in Empire (UK) magazine's Greatest Directors Ever! poll (2005).

Directed only one movie in which both of his longtime companions Diane Keaton and Mia Farrow appear in: Radio Days (1987)

He and Diane Keaton made 8 movies together: Annie Hall (1977), Love and Death (1975), Manhattan (1979), Manhattan Murder Mystery (1993), Radio Days (1987), Play It Again, Sam (1972), Interiors (1978) and Sleeper (1973).

He and Mia Farrow made 13 movies together: Broadway Danny Rose (1984), Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989), Hannah and Her Sisters (1986), Alice (1990), Another Woman (1988), The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985), September (1987), Husbands and Wives (1992), A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy (1982), New York Stories (1989), Radio Days (1987), Shadows and Fog (1991) and Zelig (1983).

According to Mia Farrow's biography, "What Falls Away", Frank Sinatra offered to have Allen's legs broken when he was found to be having an affair with her adopted daughter, Soon-Yi Previn.

Married to Mia Farrow's adopted daughter Soon-Yi Previn, from her second marriage with André Previn.

Does not allow his films to be edited for airlines and television broadcasts.

As a boy growing up in Brooklyn, he spent most of his time alone in his room practicing magic tricks or his clarinet.

Got hooked on movies when he was three years old, when his mother took him him to see Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937). From that day, he said, theaters became his second home.

Told a reporter that he has earned more money from two real estate transactions than he has from all of his movies combined. Sold his long-held Fifth Avenue penthouse (which he had purchased for $600,000) for a profit of $17 million and a renovated townhouse for a profit of some $7 million (December 2005).

Five of his movies brought home his actresses Academy Awards: Annie Hall (1977) for Diane Keaton, Hannah and Her Sisters (1986) and Bullets Over Broadway (1994) both for Dianne Wiest, Mighty Aphrodite (1995) for Mira Sorvino and Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008) for Penélope Cruz.

His godson Quincy Rose is also a successful writer and actor.

Wrote What's Up, Tiger Lily? (1966), Take the Money and Run (1969) and Bananas (1971) with his childhood friend and first writing partner, Mickey Rose. Rose also co-wrote on all of Allen's earlier comedy albums and had a big hand in writing the famous "Moose" sketch.

Stating in an interview that he was "not interested in all that extra stuff on DVDs" and that he hopes his films would speak for themselves, he has never recorded an audio commentary or even so much has been interviewed for a DVD of any films with which he had been involved.

Distant cousin of Abe Burrows.

Of his own movies, Match Point (2005) is his favorite. His other favorites are The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985), Husbands and Wives (1992) and Bullets Over Broadway (1994)_.

Was originally attached to co-star with Jim Carrey in the Farrelly Brothers comedy Stuck on You (2003), but decided to pass on the idea.

Was set to reprise his voice role in Antz (1998) for a planned direct-to-video Antz 2 but the project never got off the ground.

Is a vegetarian.

Named honorary doctor by Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona, Spain (June 2007).

His variety of neuroses include: arachnophobia (spiders), entomophobia (insects), heliophobia (sunshine), cynophobia (dogs), altophobia (heights), demophobia (crowds), carcinophobia (cancer), thanatophobia (death), misophobia (germs). He admits to being terrified of hotel bathrooms.

Has been a successful playwright since 1960, writing noted plays such as "Don't Drink Water" (1968), "Play it Again, Sam" (1969), nominated for three Tony Awards, "The Floating Light Bulb" (1981), his last work on Broadway to date, and "A Second Hand Memory" (2004).

After dropping out from New York University where he studied communication and film, he attended City College of New York.

The "Seinfeld" (1990) character George Constanza was originally planned to be a caricature of him.

A life-size statue of him was erected in the Spanish city of Oviedo (2002).

Although depicting himself as nerd in his movies, he was a popular student and adept baseball and basketball player at high school.

According to Eric Lax's book Woody Allen's favorite films are (in order): Match Point (2005), The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985), Stardust Memories (1980), Broadway Danny Rose (1984), and Manhattan Murder Mystery (1993).

His and Mia Farrow's twelve year relationship ended in a custody battle over their three children, in which she accused him of sexually molesting their daughter Dylan O'Sullivan Farrow. Farrow ultimately won custody of the children, only being allowed to see his son Ronan under supervision.

Although he was granted visitation rights for his son Ronan after a custody battle with Mia Farrow, their relationship is estranged (similar to his other children with Farrow, Moses and Dylan O'Sullivan Farrow). Ronan stated that he thinks that he cannot have a morally consistent relationship with a man who is his father and his brother-in-law.

While he has made many films that had several nominations for Best Director and Screenplay, Annie Hall is his only film so far to get a Best Picture nomination, which it then went on to win.

Manages his one film per year schedule by setting strict budgets. Actors large and small receive the same salary.

Writes his scripts on a typewriter.

Personal Quotes

I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it by not dying.

I'm not afraid of dying . . . I just don't want to be there when it happens.

[In 1977] This year I'm a star, but what will I be next year? A black hole?

On the plus side, death is one of the few things that can be done just as easily as lying down.

[When asked if he liked the idea of living on on the silver screen] I'd rather live on in my apartment.

[On films] I can't imagine that the business should be run any other way than that the director has complete control of his films. My situation may be unique, but that doesn't speak well for the business -- it shouldn't be unique, because the director is the one who has the vision and he's the one who should put that vision onto film.

Basically I am a low-culture person. I prefer watching baseball with a beer and some meatballs.

There are worse things in life than death. Have you ever spent an evening with an insurance salesman?

Money is better than poverty, if only for financial reasons.

I do the movies just for myself like an institutionalized person who basket-weaves. Busy fingers are happy fingers. I don't care about the films. I don't care if they're flushed down the toilet after I die.

Most of the time I don't have much fun. The rest of the time I don't have any fun at all.

[At the Academy Awards in 2002, explaining why he was the one introducing a montage of New York movies] And I said, 'You know, God, you can do much better than me. You know, you might want to get Martin Scorsese, or, or Mike Nichols, or Spike Lee, or Sidney Lumet...' I kept naming names, you know, and um, I said, 'Look, I've given you 15 names of guys who are more talented than I am, and, and smarter and classier...' And they said, 'Yes, but they weren't available.'

If my film makes one more person miserable, I'll feel I've done my job.

For some reason I'm more appreciated in France than I am back home. The subtitles must be incredibly good.

My relationship with Hollywood isn't love-hate, it's love-contempt. I've never had to suffer any of the indignities that one associates with the studio system. I've always been independent in New York by sheer good luck. But I have an affection for Hollywood because I've had so much pleasure from films that have come out of there. Not a whole lot of them, but a certain amount of them have been very meaningful to me.

The two biggest myths about me are that I'm an intellectual, because I wear these glasses, and that I'm an artist because my films lose money. Those two myths have been prevalent for many years.

Join the army, see the world, meet interesting people - and kill 'em.

Not only is there no God, but try getting a plumber on weekends.

If it turns out that there is a God, I don't think that he's evil. But the worst that you can say about him is that basically he's an underachiever.

To you, I'm an atheist; to God, I'm the Loyal Opposition.

If only God would give me some clear sign! Like making a large deposit in my name at a Swiss bank.

Time is nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once.

My one regret in life is that I am not someone else.

[On why he never watches his own movies] I think I would hate them.

[About the audience] I never write down to them. I always assume that they're all as smart as I am . . . if not smarter.

[On the Academy Awards circa 1978] I have no regard for that kind of ceremony. I just don't think they know what they're doing. When you see who wins those things -- or who doesn't win them -- you can see how meaningless this Oscar thing is.

[On being nominated for an Oscar for Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989)] You have to be sure to keep it very much in perspective. You think it's nice at the time because it means more money for your film, but as soon as you let yourself start thinking that way, something happens to the quality of the work.

There was no ripple professionally for me at all when I was in the papers with my custody stuff. I made my films, I worked in the streets of New York, I played jazz every Monday night, I put a play on. Everything professionally went just the same. There were no repercussions. There was white-hot interest for a while, like with all things like that, and then it became uninteresting to people.

The directors that have personal, emotional feelings for me are Ingmar Bergman and Federico Fellini, and I'm sure there has been some influence but never a direct one. I never set out to try and do anything like them. But, you know, when you listen to a jazz musician like Charlie Parker for years and you love it, then you start to play an instrument, you automatically play like that at first, then you branch off with your own things. The influence is there, it's in your blood.

Hollywood for the most part aimed at the lowest common denominator. It's conceived in venality, it's motivated by pandering to the public, by making a lot of money. People like Ingmar Bergman thought about life, and they had feelings, and they wanted to dramatize them and engage one in a dialogue. I felt I couldn't easily be engaged by the nonsense that came out of Hollywood.

I had a line in one of my movies - 'Everyone knows the same truth.' Our lives consist of how we choose to distort it. One person will distort it with a kind of wishful thinking like religion, someone else will distort it by thinking political solutions are going to do something, someone else will think a life of sensuality is going to do it, someone else will think art transcends. Art for me has always been the Catholicism of the intellectuals. There is no afterlife for the Catholics really, and there's no afterlife for the arts. 'Your painting lived on after you' - well, that doesn't really do it. That's not what you want. Even if your painting does have some longevity, eventually that's going to go. There won't be any works of William Shakespeare or Ludwig van Beethoven, or any theatre to see them in, or air or light. I've always felt you've got to live your life within the context of this worst-case scenario. Which is true; the worst-case scenario is here.

When I was a kid, movies from Hollywood seemed very glamorous, but when you look back at them as a young man, you can see out of the thousands of films that came out of Hollywood there were really very few good ones statistically, and those few that were good were made in spite of the studios. I saw European films as a young man and they were very much better. There's no comparison.

I was just a poor student. I had no interest in it. When I make a film the tacit contract with the audience is that I will give them some entertainment and not bore them. I have to do that. I just lay a message on them. Great filmmakers, like Ingmar Bergman or Akira Kurosawa or Federico Fellini, they're very entertaining, their films are fun. Well, in college they never made it entertaining for me, they just bored me stiff.

The biggest flaw in being self-taught is there are gaps. You self-teach yourself something and you think you know something fairly well, but then there are gaps a university teacher would have taught you as part of a mandatory program. I would probably have been better off if I'd got a better general education, but I was just so bored.

I can bring stars, I've worked with terrific cameramen, but people still have a better chance of making their $150m films because they're not interested in the kind of profits I can bring if I'm profitable.

The sensibility of the film-maker infuses the project so people see a picture like Annie Hall (1977) and everyone thinks it's so autobiographical. But I was not from Coney Island, I was not born under a Ferris wheel, my father never worked at a place that had bumper cars, that's not how I met Diane Keaton, and that's not how we broke up. Of course, there's that character who's always beleaguered and harassed. Certain things are autobiographical, certain feelings, even occasionally an incident, but overwhelmingly they're totally made up, completely fabricated.

Of course, I would love everybody to see my films. But I don't care enough ever to do anything about it. I would never change a word or make a movie that I thought they would like. I really don't care if they come or not. If they don't want to come, then they don't; if they do come, then great. Do I want to do what I do uncompromisingly, and would I love it if a big audience came? Yes, that would be very nice. I've never done anything to attract an audience, though I always get accused of it over the years.

[On the Academy Awards circa 1978] They're political and bought and negotiated for - although many worthy people have deservedly won - and the whole concept of awards is silly. I cannot abide by the judgment of other people, because if you accept it when they say you deserve an award, then you have to accept it when they say you don't.

I took a speed reading course and read 'War and Peace' in twenty minutes. It involves Russia.

I know it sounds horrible, but winning that Oscar for Annie Hall (1977) didn't mean anything to me.

When I was in my early twenties, I knew a man who has since died, who was older than me and also very crazy. He'd been in a straitjacket and institutionalized, and I found him very brilliant. When I would speak to him about writing, about life, art, women, he was very, very cogent - but he couldn't lead his own life, he just couldn't manage.

[On shooting in London, 2004] In the United States things have changed a lot, and it's hard to make good small films now. There was a time in the 1950s when I wanted to be a playwright, because until that time movies, which mostly came out of Hollywood, were stupid and not interesting. Then we started to get wonderful European films, and American films started to grow up a little bit, and the industry became more fun to work in than the theatre. I loved it. But now it's taken a turn in the other direction and studios are back in command and are not that interested in pictures that make only a little bit of money. When I was younger, every week we'd get a Federico Fellini or an Ingmar Bergman or a Jean-Luc Godard or François Truffaut, but now you almost never get any of that. Filmmakers like myself have a hard time. The avaricious studios couldn't care less about good films - if they get a good film they're twice as happy, but money-making films are their goal. They only want these $100-million pictures that make $500 million. That's why I'm happy to work in London, because I'm right back in the same kind of liberal creative attitude that I'm used to.

With my complexion I don't tan, I stroke.

I always think it is a mistake to try and be young, because I feel the young people in the United States have not distinguished themselves. The young audience in the United States have not proven to me that they like good movies or good theatre. The films that are made for young people are not wonderful films, they are not thoughtful. They are these blockbusters with special effects. The comedies are dumb, full of toilet jokes, not sophisticated at all. And these are the things the young people embrace. I do not idolize the young.

Man was made in God's image. Do you really think God has red hair and glasses?

Most of life is tragic. You're born, you don't know why. You're here, you don't know why. You go, you die. Your family dies. Your friends die. People suffer. People live in constant terror. The world is full of poverty and corruption and war and Nazis and tsunamis. The net result, the final count is, you lose - you don't beat the house.

Life is for the living.

My brain: It's my second favorite organ.

I don't believe in an afterlife, although I'm bringing along a change of underwear.

Organized crime in America takes in over $40 billion a year and spends very little on office supplies.

It's true I had a lot of anxiety. I was afraid of the dark and suspicious of the light.

I'm a practicing heterosexual, although bisexuality immediately doubles your chances for a date on Saturday night.

I was thrown out of NYU [New York University] for cheating on my Metaphysics final. I looked within the soul of the boy sitting next to me.

For me, being famous didn't help me that much. It helped a little. Warren Beatty once said to me many years ago, being a star is like being in a whorehouse with a credit card, and I never found that. For me, it was like being in a whorehouse with a credit card that had expired.

Stanley Kubrick was a great artist. I say this all the time and people think I'm being facetious. I'm not. Kubrick was a guy who obsessed over details and did 100 takes, and you know, I don't feel that way. If I'm shooting a film and it's 6 o'clock at night and I've got a take, and I think I might be able to get a better take if I stayed, but the Knicks tipoff is at 7:30, then that's it. The crews love working on my movies because they know they'll be home by 6.

I never wanted movies to be an end. I wanted them to be a means so that I could have a decent life -- meet attractive women, go out on dates, live decently. Not opulently, but with some security. I feel the same way now. A guy like Steven Spielberg will go live in the desert to make a movie, or Martin Scorsese will make a picture in India and set up camp and live there for four months. I mean, for me, if I'm not shooting in my neighborhood, it's annoying. I have no commitment to my work in that sense. No dedication.

I wasn't away. And I'm not back. Match Point (2005) was a film about luck, and it was a very lucky film for me. I did it the way I do all my pictures, and it just worked. I needed a rainy day, I got a rainy day. I needed sun, I got sun. Kate Winslet dropped out at the last moment because she wanted to be with her family, and Scarlett Johansson was available on two days' notice. It's like I couldn't ruin this picture no matter how hard I tried.

I think there is too much wrong with the world to ever get too relaxed and happy. The more natural state, and the better one, I think, is one of some anxiety and tension over man's plight in this mysterious universe.

80% of success is showing up.

Having sex is like playing bridge. If you don't have a good partner, you'd better have a good hand.

[Responding to fans, skeptical of his plan to direct an opera] I have no idea what I am doing. But incompetence has never prevented me from plunging in with enthusiasm.

I do feel that in everyday life people on a great spectrum get away with crime all the time, ranging from genocide to just street crime. Most crimes do go unsolved, and people commit murders and ruin other people and do the worst things in the world, and, you know, there's no one to penalize you if you don't have a sense of conscience about it. There is an element in life of enormous, enormous injustice that we live with all the time. It's just an ugly-but-true fact of life.

[Movies are a great diversion] because it's much more pleasant to be obsessed over how the hero gets out of his predicament than it is over how I get out of mine.

My mother always said I was a very cheerful kid until I was 5 years old, and then I turned gloomy.

I can't really come up with a good argument to choose life over death. Except that I'm too scared.

I was never bothered if a film was not well received. But the converse of that is that I never get a lot of pleasure out of it if it is. So it isn't like you can say, 'He's an uncompromising artist.' That's not true. I'm a compromising person, definitely. It's that I don't get much from either side.

Your perception of time changes as you get older, because you see how brief everything is. You see how meaningless ... I don't want to depress you, but it's a meaningless little flicker.

I once thought there was a good argument between whether it's worth it to make a film where you confront the human condition, or an escape film. You could argue that the Fred Astaire film is performing a greater service than the Bergman film, because Ingmar Bergman is dealing with a problem that you're never going to solve. Whereas 'Fred Astaire', you walk in off the street, and for an hour and half they're popping champagne corks and making light banter and you get refreshed, like a lemonade.

I've made perfectly decent films, but not 8½ (1963), not Det sjunde inseglet (1957) ("The Seventh Seal"), Les quatre cents coups (1959) ("The 400 Blows") or L'avventura (1960) - ones that to me really proclaim cinema as art, on the highest level. If I was the teacher, I'd give myself a B.

Ireland's one of the few places that lives up to the hype, that is as beautiful as everyone tells you it is.

(on directing the LA Opera, alongside William Friedkin) I figured, "Eh, I'll be dead before it happens. I'm 72. I'm never going to make it to the opera." But it came around, and next Monday, I start rehearsal. I'll just do the best I can and then get out of town and let them tar and feather Friedkin.

[on directing an opera] He [Plácido Domingo] said, "What if we do the Puccini trilogy - it's three one-acts that are always done together? The first two, Billy Friedkin will direct. You'll only be responsible for a one-act, a one-hour opera, and it's funny." You know, funny to opera people is not funny to the Marx Brothers.

It would be a disgrace and a humiliation if Barack Obama does not win... It would be a terrible thing if the American public was not moved to vote for him, that they actually preferred more of the same.

I never had a teacher who made the least impression on me and if you ask who are my heroes, the answer is simple and truthful: George S. Kaufman and the Marx Brothers.

I don't believe in an afterlife, although I am bringing a change of underwear.

On 2001: A Space Odyssey: It was one of the few times in my life that I realized that the artist was so much ahead of me.

I've never felt that if I waited five years between films, I'd make better ones. I just make one when I feel like making it. And it comes out to be about one a year. Some of them come out good, and some of them come out less than good. Some of them may be very good and some may be very bad. But I have no interest in an overall plan for them or anything.

If I write a film and there is a part in it for me - great. But if I sit down in advance and think, "I'd like to be in this film," or "It's been a long time since I've been in a film so it would be fun to do one," then all of a sudden there's an enormous amount of limits and compromise. I can only play a few things so that compromises the idea instantly. I think Deconstructing Harry (1997) would have been better with Dustin Hoffman or Robert De Niro, for sure. I also tried very hard to get another actor to play the part I did in The Curse of the Jade Scorpion (2001). I think we tried to see if Tom Hanks was available, and Nicholson. Either they weren't available or didn't want to do it. So I finally played that part. And I shouldn't have, because it wasn't my usual kind of role, and I think that hurt the film.

I've been around a long time, and some people may just get tired of me, which I can understand. I've tried to keep my films different over the years, but it's like they complain, "We've eaten Chinese food every day this week." I want to say, "Well, yes, but you had a shrimp meal and you had a pork meal and you had a chicken meal." They say, "Yes, yes, but it's all Chinese food." That's the way I feel about myself. I have a certain amount of obsessive themes and a certain amount of things I'm interested in and no matter how different the film is, whether it's Small Time Crooks (2000) here or Zelig (1983) there, you find in the end that it's Chinese food. If you're not in the mood for my obsessions, then you may not be in the mood for my film. Now, hopefully, if I make enough films, some of them will come out fresh, but there's no guarantee. It's a crapshoot every time I make one. It could come out interesting or you might get the feeling that, God, I've heard this kvetch before - I don't know.

On Match Point (2005): To me, it is strictly about luck. Life is such a terrifying experience - it's very important to feel, "I don't believe in luck, Well, I make my luck." Well, the truth of the matter is, you don't make your luck. So I wanted to show that here was a guy - and I symbolically made him a tennis player - who's a pretty bad guy, and yet my feeling is, in life, if you get the breaks - if the luck bounces your way, you know - you can not only get by, you can flourish in the same way that I felt Marty Landau could in Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989). If you can kill somebody - if you have no moral sense - there's no God out there that's suddenly going to hit you with lightning. Because I don't believe in God. So this is what was on my mind: the enormous unfairness of the world, the enormous injustice of the world, the sense that every day people get away with the worst kinds of crimes. So it's a pessimistic film, in that sense.

[On his least favorite of his own films "Manhattan" (1979) I hated that one. I even made Stardust Memories for United Artists just so Manhattan would stay on the shelf. And even after those efforts, I still can't believe even to this day how it became so commercially successful. I can't believe I got away with it.

I'm kind of, secretly, in the back of my mind, counting on living a long time. My father lived to a hundred. My mother lived to 95, almost 96. If there is anything to heredity, I should be able to make films for another 17 years. You never know. A piano could drop on my head. (December 2005)

I've never, ever in my life had any interference. I've always had final cut, no-one saw scripts, no-one saw casting. So since Take the Money and Run (1969), I've been spoiled. But recently, at about the time of Match Point (2005), the studios began to behave differently. They started to say, "Look, we like to make films with you and we'll give you the money, but we don't want to be treated as if we're just a bank, putting money in a bag and then just going away. You'll still have final cut and all of that, but we would like to see a script, know who you're casting and be involved in some way." I feel that this is a completely reasonable request, but I just wasn't used to working that way, so I went over to Europe. There's no studio system, so they don't care about any of that stuff. They're bankers. And they're happy to be bankers. They put up the money, you give them the film, and that's what they care about. That worked very well for me on Match Point (2005). So I did it again with Scoop (2006) and Cassandra's Dream (2007). And I made Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008) in Spain under the same circumstances.

If they said to me tomorrow, "We're pulling the plug and we're not giving you any more money to make films," that would not bother me in the slightest. I mean, I'm happy to write for the theatre. And if they wouldn't back any of my plays, I'm happy to sit home and write prose. But as long as there are people willing to put up the vast sums of money needed to make films, I should take advantage of it. Because there will come a time when they won't.

Retire and do what? I'd be doing the same thing as I do now: sitting at home writing a play, then characters, jokes and situations would come to me. So I don't know what else I would do with my time.

Salary

What's Up, Tiger Lily? (1966)

$66,000

Where Are They Now

(August 2003) Is currently filming his follow-up to Anything Else (2003) in New York.

(November 2004) He is currently directing his original play "A Second-Hand Memory" at the Atlantic Theater Company in New York.

(October 2005) Plays clarinet every Monday night at the Café Carlyle in Manhattan.

(December 2007) European concert tour (Brussels, Luxembourg, Vienna, Paris, Budapest, Athens, Lisbon, Barcelona, San Sebastian, La Coruna) with the Eddie Davis New Orleans Jazz Band.

Browse biographies section by name

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z