Filmmaker Woody Allen has gone on the offensive to clear his name just days after actress Scarlett Johansson publicly supported him in the face of allegations that he sexually abused his former adopted daughter Dylan Farrow.
Speaking with France 24, Allen pointed to his working relationships with several actresses across multiple decades to highlight his #MeToo bona fides.
“I’ve worked with hundreds of actresses [and] not one of them has ever complained about me, not a single complaint. I’ve worked with [and] employed women in the top capacity, in every capacity, for years and we’ve always paid them exactly the equal of men,” Allen said, according to The Hollywood Reporter (THR). “I’ve done everything that the #MeToo movement would love to achieve.”
Since 1993, Dylan Farrow has maintained that Woody Allen sexually molested her while he dated her mother, Mia Farrow. Allen has emphatically denied the accusation, claiming that Mia coached Dylan as part of a vicious custody dispute. The charges were ultimately dismissed by authorities and Moses Farrow, Dylan’s brother, has defended Allen’s innocence while asserting that Mia was the abusive one.
Since the #MeToo movement hit, Amazon shelved Allen’s latest film, “Rain Day in New York,” and though the movie is currently being released in Europe, Allen said that he believes a U.S. release will come soon.
“To me the movie is being released all over the world,” he said. “If people enjoy the movie, I think it will eventually be released in the U.S.”
The former “Crimes and Misdemeanors” director added that he does not fear being blacklisted by Hollywood over Dylan Farrow’s accusations.
“I couldn’t care less. I’ve never worked in Hollywood. I’ve always worked in New York, and it doesn’t matter to me for a second,” he said. “If tomorrow nobody would finance my films and nobody would finance my theater plays or nobody would publish my books, I’d still get up and write because that’s what I do. So I will always work. What happens to it commercially is another matter.”
“I haven’t thought of retiring. I don’t have to make movies. If people didn’t want to finance my movies I would be very happy working in the theater, or writing books, but I like to get up and write. I don’t like to get up and do nothing,” he continued.
Woody Allen made headlines this week when Johansson, who has starred in several of the director’s films, publicly said that she believes his account of what happened in 1993.
“I love Woody,” Johansson told The Hollywood Reporter. “I believe him, and I would work with him anytime. 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.”
Following that, Dylan Farrow took to Twitter to scold Johansson for defending Allen. “Because if we’ve learned anything from the past two years it’s that you definitely should believe male predators who ‘maintain their innocence’ without question. Scarlett has a long way to go in understanding the issue she claims to champion,” tweeted Farrow.