Woody Allen Deeply Regrets Agreeing To Make TV Series for Amazon
Woody Allen Amazon Series: “I haven’t had a pleasurable moment since I undertook it.”
While many fans may be excited about Woody Allen’s upcoming series for Amazon Prime, Allen himself is not.
In an in-depth interview with Deadline, he discussed his upcoming film, Irrational Man, before the subject turned to the television series that Allen signed on to create and write exclusively for Amazon Prime.
“I have regretted every second since I said OK,” Allen said. “It’s been so hard for me. I had the cocky confidence, well, I’ll do it like I do a movie. It’ll be a movie in six parts. Turns out, it’s not. For me, it has been very, very difficult. I’ve been struggling and struggling and struggling.”
Allen, who still uses a typewriter to pen his films, emphasized his lack of awareness about pop culture. “I never knew what Amazon was. I’ve never seen any of those series, even on cable. I’ve never seen The Sopranos, or Mad Men. I’m out every night and when I come home, I watch the end of the baseball or basketball game, and there’s Charlie Rose and I go to sleep.”
He said that Amazon executives were incredibly insistent and open in their negotiations. “Amazon kept coming to me and saying, please do this, whatever you want. I kept saying, ‘I have no ideas for it, that I never watch television. I don’t know the first thing about it.'”
Allen continued to refuse, even as Amazon continued to offer more money and more creative freedom. “Finally they said ‘Look, we’ll do anything that you want, just give us six half hours. They can be black and white, they can take place in Paris, in New York and California, they can be about a family, they can be comedy, you can be in them, they can be tragic. We don’t have to know anything, just come in with six half hours. And they offered a lot of money and everybody around me was pressuring me, go ahead and do it, what do you have to lose?'”
Since the announcement, Allen complained, “I haven’t had a pleasurable moment since I undertook it.” He added that he has until the end of 2016 to complete the six-episode series for the streaming service.
Unlike films or plays, forms in which he feels comfortable writing, television feels baffling to the entertainment veteran of more than 50 years. “I’m like a fish out of water… How to begin something and end it after a half an hour and then come back the next time. It’s not me.”
