Forget all this crap about Woody Allen that you see in today’s tabloids. He has an easily manipulated son. And a stupid French comic embarrassed him by accident. Woody’s over it.
He’s so over it that Woody came to lunch today with the American press at the beautiful Hotel Carlton’s Nikki Beach restaurant. He came with “Cafe Society” cast members Jesse Eisenberg, Cory Stoll, Kristen Stewart and Blake Lively. Woody, dressed like Woody, was a in very good mood and answered all questions.
But the most surprising revelation about Woody came from Jesse Eisenberg, who turns out to Allen’s best ever on screen surrogate. Jesse plays the romantic lead in “Cafe Society,” a young man who suffers from unrequited love in a triangle with Stewart and her older lover (played beautifully by Steve Carell).
Eisenberg, asked what it’s like to work with an 80 year old director, responded with all kinds of salutations about Woody’s high energy. But then he blurted out a good scoop: “He shot this in digital for the first time, and it’s the first time Woody ever had a green screen in a movie.”
A green screen is used for special effects. You act in front of a blue or green screen, and the shot is added later. In “Cafe Society,” Eisenberg and Stewart drive to the famed Hollywood sign. The sign was added in later.
“He looked at the [empty] screen and he said, where’s the picture?” Jesse chuckled. “It was very sweet.”
Woody told us his Amazon six part TV series with Miley Cyrus and Elaine May is all wrapped and ready to go this fall. “Cafe Society” is released on July 15th. And this week in New York, Allen starts work on his 47th feature, an untitled comedy set in a carnival type playland like Coney Island.
