Director Woody Allen gave a rare, in-depth interview to the Wall Street Journal to promote his first-ever novel, “What’s With Baum,” where he discussed his own Hollywood shunning over the allegations he sexually abused his adopted daughter, Dylan Farrow.
Allen has repeatedly denied the allegations that he molested Dylan when she was 7 years old in her mother Mia Farrow’s Connecticut home. In a statement to the Wall Street Journal, Dylan Farrow said, “I am sick and tired of the misogynistic and unscientific narrative that I was coached or brainwashed. Far from it, this is a truth I reported as a child and have continued to recount consistently since. I am a 40-year-old woman. I was sexually assaulted by Woody Allen.”
The director, whom many in Hollywood have refused to work with after the allegations, shared his own thoughts on cancel culture: “It’s just dumb.”
“If an actor says, ‘I won’t work with him,’ basically, the actor is thinking, ‘I’m doing a good thing,’ from his point of view, ‘I’m making a contribution, I’m making a statement.’” Allen said. “But he’s really making a mistake. Some day he may learn that.”
Actors like Michael Caine, Drew Barrymore, Colin Firth, Kate Winslet and more have spoken out in recent years about refusing to work with Allen and regretting working with him in the past. When asked about people turning their back on him, Allen said “I don’t get angry.”
“I would think they would have more common sense, when they read about the situation. What surprises me, always, is how ready and willing people are to embrace it. I would think someone reading the details would think, ‘That’s a little dicey looking to me,’” he added.
Allen’s new novel shares a number of similarities with his own life. According to the Wall Street Journal, the main character is a “middle-aged Jewish journalist turned failed playwright turned middling novelist named Asher Baum. It features a rocky third marriage, alluring younger women [and] career-ending blunders.” Additionally, “Connie, Baum’s wife in the novel, bears an uncanny similarity to Farrow as does her unhealthily close relationship with her son Thane, which echoes Allen’s descriptions of Farrow’s relationships with her sons Fletcher and Ronan. Just like Allen’s memoir was dropped by his original publisher, Baum was also dropped by his own publisher.”
“There are a number of things that happened in my life, and I throw them in whatever I’m working on,” Allen said.