Woody Allen to end directing career soon

Woody Allen made a rare live appearance for an interview with Alec Baldwin on Baldwin's Instagram account, which has 2.4 million followers. Allen and Baldwin have worked together on several occasions earlier, with Allen directing Baldwin in 'Alice' (1990), 'To Rome With Love' (2012) and 'Blue Jasmine' (2013). Baldwin called Allen's films a "warm bath for me that makes everything ok."

However, Allen has announced he is considering ending his directing career after his next movie, which will shoot in Paris.

"I'll probably make at least one more movie. A lot of the thrill is gone. When I used to do a film it'd go into a movie house all across the country. Now you do a movie and you get a couple of weeks in a movie house. Maybe six weeks or four weeks and then it goes right to streaming or pay-per-view...It's not the same...It's not as enjoyable to me," Allen said.

"I don't get the same fun doing a movie and putting it in a theatre. It was a nice feeling to know that 500 people were seeing it once... I don't know how I feel about making movies. I'm going to make another one and I'll see how it feels," he added.

Baldwin asked questions about Allen's writing, from his memoir 'Apropos of Nothing' to his new collection of essays, 'Zero Gravity.' The duo avoided controversial topics, and Allen's Instagram live stream kept dropping out, interrupting the conversation. The interview was interrupted three times due to technical problems.

"Are they in a room where they have the best Wifi? They need to be in a room with the best Wifi in the house," Baldwin was heard asking someone off-camera after Allen dropped out of the feed for a second time.

Baldwin surprised the industry after his announcement of the interview with Allen, timed to the publication of Allen's new collection of essays, 'Zero Gravity.' Allen has continued to face backlash after his adopted daughter, Dylan Farrow, accused him of molesting her as a child. The allegation was at the center of HBO's 2021 documentary series 'Allen v. Farrow,' which included a never-before-seen home video of 7-year-old Farrow talking about the alleged assault shortly after she alleges it occurred. Allen has long denied the allegation and called it 'untrue and disgraceful' in a statement following the release of the HBO series, as per Variety.

Ahead of the interview, Baldwin wrote on Instagram, "Let me preface this by stating that I have zero interest in anyone's judgments and sanctimonious posts here. I am obviously someone who has my own set of beliefs and could not care less about anyone else's speculation. If you believe that a trial should be conducted by way of an HBO documentary, that's your issue."

Baldwin himself has been at the centre of controversy since October 2021, when a prop gun he fired on the set of the independent film 'Rust' killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins.