Woody Allen interview
Interview by Jason Simos
Simos:'Scoop is your second movie filmed in London, with a third on the way; unlike the character you play in Scoop, have you fallen in love with this city?'
Allen: 'It's a very nice place to film in. I mean, I like filming in New York a lot myself, but London is accommodating to me; the weather's very good there and the conditions for shooting – the financial conditions, the artistic conditions - are good, so it's a pleasant place to shoot.'
Simos:'Do you now have favoured locations in London - equivalents to, say, Kaufman Astoria Studios or Greenwich Village?'
Allen: 'You know, I don’t know the town that well, so I still enjoy going around to all the places in town. I like going around the streets of London, which is a particularly pretty city. So it's very easy to get locations when you combine the beauty of the city and the beauty of the weather that you get every day; these wonderful, moody, grey, soft-lit skies. It comes out very seductive on film.'
Simos:'In Scoop, it seemed like there are parts of London that you're still exploring, after Match Point.'
Allen: 'Right. Because I don't know it that well, of course I gravitate to those places that I know or that the art director brings me to that are picturesque. Being a city person myself, naturally I'm taken - I think anybody would be, in London - with the enormous amounts of parks and squares that they have, and the beautiful white houses and beautiful country locations. They're famous for their country houses and estates, and it's fun to shoot on those.'