As we recently reported, Woody Allen’s memoir, “Apropos of Nothing,” was released with little fanfare earlier this week, after the book’s original publisher refused to distribute it. In the memoir, the filmmaker goes over his entire career, as well as recent controversies, including how some of his former actors have denounced working with him. And in the case of at least one of the actors that have worked with Allen recently, Timothée Chalamet, the filmmaker believes his public denouncement wasn’t motivated by morals, but instead, by the actor’s awards chances.
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Chalamet is one of the stars of Allen’s recent film, “A Rainy Day In New York,” which was set to be released by Amazon Studios before the filmmaker’s comments about #MeToo resulted in the film being shelved. (Allen eventually got the rights back and has been trying to find a US distributor, to no avail.) However, after Allen became a target for the #MeToo movement, Chalamet, along with other actors, came out against the filmmaker, with the ‘Rainy Day’ star donating his payment for the film to charity.
But in Allen’s memoir, the director doesn’t think that Chalamet was being sincere. In fact, Allen believes that the reason the young actor donated his check and spoke badly about the filmmaker is due to Chalamet wanting to win an Oscar.
“All the three leads in ‘Rainy Day’ were excellent and a pleasure to work with,” Allen said (via Page Six). “Timothée afterward publicly stated he regretted working with me and was giving the money to charity, but he swore to my sister he needed to do that as he was up for an Oscar for ‘Call Me by Your Name,’ and he and his agent felt he had a better chance of winning if he denounced me, so he did.”
The filmmaker added, “Anyhow, I didn’t regret working with him and I’m not giving any of my money back.”
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Obviously, this is just going to be a bit of a he said/he said scenario, where you can choose to believe whoever you want. But it is clear that Allen isn’t worried about upsetting anyone with his memoir and is willing to give his side of the story without hesitation. It’s just a matter of whether or not you believe him.