Greta Gerwig Says She Regrets Working With Woody Allen
Greta Gerwig said she would not have acted in Woody Allen‘s 2012 film To Rome With Love had she known about the allegations of sexual misconduct and abuse against him.
In an interview with The New York Times, the Lady Bird director said, “If I had known then what I know now, I would not have acted in the film. I have not worked for him again, and I will not work for him again. Dylan Farrow’s two different pieces made me realize that I increased another woman’s pain, and I was heartbroken by that realization. I grew up on his movies, and they have informed me as an artist, and I cannot change that fact now, but I can make different decisions moving forward.”
Allen was accused of abusing his adoptive daughter, Dylan Farrow, in 1993, around the same time the filmmaker and his then-girlfriend, Mia Farrow, split. Allen was never prosecuted and has denied any wrongdoing, but in 2014 – after Allen received the Golden Globes’ lifetime achievement award – Farrow penned an open letter in The New York Times in which she reiterated her allegations of abuse against Allen.
Gerwig’s statement comes after she was criticized for giving a non-response to a question about working with Allen following the Golden Globes this weekend. “It’s something that I’ve thought deeply about, and I haven’t had an opportunity to have an in-depth discussion where I come down on one side or the other,” Gerwig said at the time.
In her interview with The Times, Gerwig acknowledged her reticence to speak on the issue, saying, “I have been asked about a couple of times recently, as I worked for him on a film that came out in 2012. It is something that I take very seriously and have been thinking deeply about, and it has taken me time to gather my thoughts and say what I mean to say.”
Farrow responded to Gerwig’s Times interview on Twitter, saying, “Greta, thank you for your voice. Thank you for your words. Please know they are deeply felt and appreciated.”
Farrow and her brother Ronan – the biological son of Allen and Mia Farrow – have both been vocal critics of Allen over the past few years (Ronan Farrow also helped break the Harvey Weinstein scandal). After this year’s Golden Globes, Dylan Farrow posted several tweets in which she spoke about what has, and hasn’t, changed since her 2014 op-ed, and how she hoped the Time’s Up movement would affect Allen. “No predator should be spared by virtue of their ‘talent’ or ‘creativity’ or ‘genius,'” she said. “No rock should be left unturned. The principles of the movement need to be applied consistently and without exemption.”