Woody Allen opens up about Soon-Yi: 'I provided her with enormous opportunities' (2024)

Woody Allen is getting candid about his personal life.

In a lengthy sit-down with The Hollywood Reporter, the director chatted about everything from his upcoming projects to his relationship with wife Soon-Yi Previn, who's 35 years younger than Allen.

The pair, who have been married for over 20 years, met because she was the adopted daughter of his then-wife Mia Farrow -- which caused a scandal once he and Previn became romantically linked.

In this new interview, Allen says he was he was "immune" to the criticism that sparked up about his relationship in the '90s.

"I worked right through that, undiminished," he says. "Made films all through those years and at the same rate I was making them. I'm good that way. I am very disciplined and very monomaniacal and compartmentalized."

Around the time he split with Farrow, he was also accused of sexually abusing their 7-year-old daughter Dylan. The claims were dismissed, but she wrote about them once again in a New York Times op-ed in 2014.

In the THRinterview, Allen doesn't speak about Dylan, but does say he hasn't seen Mia in some time.

He also spoke candidly about how Previn has affected him, calling her "one of the great experiences of my life."

"She's given me a lot of pleasure," he says.

"I adore her, and she's given me a wonderful life."

"I adore her, and she's given me a wonderful life. We've been married 20 years. And we were together for a few years before that. And she has given me the great years of my life, personally. She's a great companion and a great wife. She has given me a stable and wonderful home life and great companionship."

Allen also helped improve Previn's life, he notes.

"I've been able to really make her life better. I provided her with enormous opportunities, and she has sparked to them. She's educated herself and has tons of friends and children and got a college degree and went to graduate school, and she has traveled all over with me now. She's very sophisticated and has been to all the great capitals of Europe. She has just become a different person. So the contributions I've made to her life have given me more pleasure than all my films."

He also spoke on his upcoming projects, including his Amazon TV series starring Miley Cyrus. He first came across her when he noticed his kids watching Hannah Montana.

"I would say: 'Who is that girl? She's got such a good delivery. You know, she snaps those lines off so well. The show is a silly little show, but she's very good at what she does,'" he says.

Also, in case you're wondering where he stands on politics, he calls himself a "Hillary fan," though he does "like Bernie very much." He's also met Donald Trump before.

"I've met Trump because he was in one of my movies, Celebrity," he says. "He's very affable, and I run into him at basketball games and at Lincoln Center. And he is always very nice and pleasant — [which is] hard to put together with many of the things he has said in his campaign."

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