Woody Allen longs to work with Al Pacino, Robert DeNiro and Jack Nicholson, but they are always “too busy” to collaborate, the filmmaker has revealed.
Allen, 78, said he had approached all three Hollywood icons in the past but come up empty handed. The prolific director, promoting new film Magic in the Moonlight, was speaking to Josh Horowitz of Happy Sad Confused, marking his first ever appearance on a podcast.
“The guys are great but they are hard to get,” revealed Allen. “I have called De Niro, I’ve spoken on the phone to Dustin Hoffman and Jack Nicholson.
“Nicholson was going to do Hannah And Her Sisters — I wasn’t thinking of Michael Caine at the time as I wasn’t thinking of an English guy. It would never have occurred to me.”
The director continued: “Now I am working with Joaquin Phoenix, a great actor, and Sean Penn [but] I just haven’t had the opportunity to work with some of our greatest — Pacino, De Niro, Nicholson — they’re as great as it gets. I would love to work with [Kevin Spacey]. If I had anything for him I would do it in a minute.”
Allen also revealed he is a perfectionist who is never entirely happy with his films. “I am always disappointed — there is always a big difference in what one sets out to make and what one ends up with. What you set out to make is in your mind... in fantasy, it is what exists on paper,” he said.
He added: “Emma [Stone] is going to do this line and it will be great. Then when you do it Emma doesn’t want to do those lines as they are hard to do — or... we have to shift to a different location because the sunlight is too harsh there. Or it takes her much longer to shuffle the deck of cards than you thought.”
Magic in the Moonlight, which stars Colin Firth, Stone and Jackie Weaver, is released on July 25 in the US, on August 28 in Australia, and September 19 in the UK. The romantic comedy has been picking up lukewarm early reviews, by contrast with recent Oscar-winning Allen fare such as 2012’s Midnight in Paris and last year’s Blue Jasmine.
