Woody Quotes

Woody is the guy who made me want to be a comic. I was in heaven and couldn’t stop smiling because he was my idle and 29 years after seeing Take the Money and Run, I was working for him.

I have two mini huskies called Woody Guthrie and Edison Guthrie.

I have a Woody Allen Jewish attitude to life: that it’s all going to be disastrous. That it hasn’t all been that way is simply down to some random quirk of fate.

People who I’ve worked with are always like, ‘Why aren’t you doing comedy? You’re funny!’ because they’ve only seen the one side. I did do the comedy ‘Whatever Works,’ with Woody Allen and Larry David.

I was also a big Woody Allen fan. When I got into college I listened to Lenny Bruce but it’s taken me years to put him into context historically and really get what he did.

It seems that our politicians see the world in black and white, so why not our artists? Did Woody Allen’s ‘Manhattan’ have to be in black and white? No. But is it fantastic that it was? To see New York like that? Yes!

I would love to have a long and serious conversation with the Pope. And Woody Allen, whom I have never interviewed. Then, after those two? Steve Jobs.

I was raised by a dad who has a fantastic sense of humor who raised me on ‘The Muppet Show,’ Steve Martin movies, and Woody Allen’s standup, and he really encouraged me to ham it up from an early age.

I’m very physical. I’m extremely active, and I would love to do something a little more sexy and dangerous, a la Sophia Loren, or funny and humorous, a la Woody Allen. Getting to do things along those lines would be extremely wicked and a dream come true.

The reason I do what I do is because I was influenced by Steve Martin, by Woody Allen, by Bob Newhart, by Carol Burnett, by Lucille Ball.

I would love to work with Dustin Hoffman, John Malkovich, Omar Epps, Martin Scorsese, Josh Mond, Woody Allen, Paul Thomas Anderson, and David O. Russell, just to name a few. Those guys are absolutely brilliant at what they do.

I think Woody Allen calls it ‘anxiety of influence.’ When you’re in your formative years and you watch a movie that makes you want to make movies… For Wes Anderson, it’s Truffaut. I’m sure for P.T. Anderson it was Scorsese and Jonathan Demme.

Through movies, I have met nearly everyone I have wanted to, except Woody Allen.

Working with Woody Allen is like filming Howard Hughes’s will. It’s a very mysterious and strange event. You never get a peek at the whole will.

Steven Spielberg, Woody Allen, you name it – I’m interested. I’m free. I’m looking for acting work. At the same time, you have to find a role you’re right for, and then there’s a slew of other actresses. That’s why I will pursue more directing. It’s like, who needs a boss? I’m right here.

I loved Woody Allen’s short pieces. I was equally influenced by Woody Allen and Norman Mailer. I was very into this idea of being high-low, of being serious and intellectual but also making really broad jokes.

I’m a writer and director, and the movie I’ve seen a million times is ‘Stardust Memories’ by Woody Allen, starring Woody Allen and Charlotte Rampling.

When I went to Paris, I had a lot of ideas about it that were formed in the sort of ether that flows about if you watch too many recent Woody Allen movies or took French classes as a kid. I was certainly full of those.

When I got out of high school, I joined a local blues band in Philadelphia – Woody’s Truck Stop.

You don’t ever really get to know Woody Allen.

I took an acting class with Louise Lasser, Woody Allen’s first wife and co-star in many movies. I’ve done some other indie films, if you look on the YouTube. I love acting – it’s great.

It’s always been a dream of mine to be in a Woody Allen comedy.

‘Ernest Borgnine’ is sort of my version of Woody Allen’s ‘Purple Rose Of Cairo’ in that it’s about the occasional difficulty of coming to terms with the cold hard facts and the temptation to escape into another world – like movies, for example. I’m a pro at escaping.

I’ve always been a big fan of how Woody Guthrie wrote political songs like ‘This Land is Your Land.’

You probably can’t name more than a handful of comedies that would qualify for Best Picture. I can think of a lot of comedy screenplays; Woody Allen has had numerous nominations for his screenplays. But most comedies are calculated. They tend to pander. They’re not about anything important.

If Woody Allen called me, I’d be there straight away. Who wouldn’t? Truly.

I never really considered ‘Quantum & Woody’ a comedic book or a funny book. I never thought of it as a satire.

Scent is very important. Strong fragrances suit some men, while citrus types suit others. I like my men to smell fresh and woody, but also like a man.

Once I made a boyfriend dress up as Woody Allen from ‘Annie Hall.’

But nothing beats a Woody Allen film on a Sunday night, with a glass of wine and some leftovers.

My goodness, what a blast it is filming ‘Woody.’

Well you know, Woody doesn’t rehearse, as opposed to my own method of directing where I really work with actors around a round table for weeks, examining the values of the material, so his technique is very different.

My mother was adored by her family and by the scores of children she took care of and their parents, all of whom called her ‘Miss Woody.’

I don’t know if you have ever seen the Woody Allen film ‘Annie Hall,’ but it is, in a way, to Los Angeles and ‘Hollywood’ what ‘This Is Spinal Tap’ is to many musicians.

We don’t need another Woody. Even Bob Dylan knew he couldn’t be Woody Guthrie… I like Woody Guthrie fine, but I don’t need the 50th generation version of it.

It took me little more than two years to complete my film, ‘Woody Allen: A Documentary.’ I conducted hours of filmed interviews with Woody, who put forward no ground rules about questions I could ask, or topics to avoid.

Woody Allen movies notwithstanding, therapy, in the early eighties, was not exactly a hot conversation starter. Nor was it a favoured activity for dysfunctional couples or suffering individuals.

I was voted best-looking kid in high school but, as you can see, things changed. I used to say I was a 260 pound Woody Allen. You can make that 295 pound now.

Your principal motive on a movie set is to get the film made, but on a Woody Allen set, there’s an ulterior thing that goes on, which is, ‘Did you have a conversation with Woody? How friendly have you been with him? Am I liked by him?’

Woody Allen has a wonderful line: ‘Today I’m a star. What will I be tomorrow? A black hole?’ That’s very important to know – that you have the moment, then you lose the moment. You have to see your chances, you have to take them, and you also have to see when you don’t have chances to take.

Being in a Woody Allen film. I cherish it.

I had heard all sorts of stories about Woody Allen’s directing – directorial approach. And some of them turned out to be myth, but one of them was that he doesn’t rehearse, and another was that he doesn’t really direct. If he doesn’t like it… he cuts it out of the movie or even replaces you. And he doesn’t talk to you.

What I really like about Woody Allen’s films is that there’s a real investment in personal relationships. There is the idea that this is a serious concern worth making serious art about – how we love other people and how we can negotiate our relationships with them.

I’m a huge Woody Allen fan. Good movie, bad movie, it doesn’t matter – I just like his movies.

Woody Allen is in his ’70s and he’s making movies, so I look forward to getting there.

If Woody Allen were a Muslim, he’d be dead by now.

My dad played at Ohio State, my dad coached with Woody Hayes. Ohio State’s always been Ohio State.

I don’t think Mia should go on adopting children, and I think that all her adoptions should have been a warning signal to Woody when he met her.

I like so many different directors: Scorsese, Coppola, Cassavetes, Jarmusch, Gus van Sant, Woody Allen and the greats like Fellini, Bergman, Tarkovsky and among current filmmakers von Trier, Ang Lee, Wong Kar-wai.

I always thought Woody Harrelson is quite a persuasive guy. He’s the kind of guy who can call you up in the middle of the night and tell you, ‘Let’s all go get a donut!’ And you’re thinking, ‘It’s the middle of the night,’ but somehow you still get up and go get a donut.

I don’t usually experience that because there are few people who intimidate me, but Woody was one of them.

I may look like an American WASPy doctor or lawyer, but I feel just like Woody Allen. Don’t cast me for my looks – I have a very ironic, existential, crazy Jew in me.

Woody Allen stayed so good because he never left New York. Howard Stern stayed so good because he never left New York – Mel Brooks when he just got out of New York was doing ‘Blazing Saddles;’ when he left New York he started doing stuff like ‘Robin Hood Men In Tights’ – he was in L.A. too long. He lost the edge.

There is an amazing feminist writer called Lindy West; she wrote a very nice piece for The New York Times. She wrote about Woody Allen, saying if we can’t go after your work or your career, we will go after your legacy. You will never be remembered the same way. I think a lot of women will have to take solace in that.

If you had told me ten years ago that I would be able to go and make out with Will Forte one day and then Woody Harrelson the next, it would have blown my mind.

Most people don’t realize that when we were producing ‘Black Panther,’ ‘Quantum & Woody,’ and ‘Steel,’ fairly few people were reading those titles. We were constantly threatened with cancellation.

I love doing comedy, and that’s the thing I will always go back to, really, but I’d love to have the freedom to do sort of ‘meaty’ roles but also have the freedom to do the sort of films I want to make, like what Woody Allen does. You forget he’s funny because you’re so gripped by the story, but they still make you laugh.

I’m not a big Woody Allen fan, but thought ‘Husbands and Wives’ was great.

A part of me looks at life from a dismal perspective, not unlike Woody Allen and Larry David. But I don’t want to look at life like that. It’s bad enough that I have to think it. What works for me is writing against that view. There is God, there is love, there is greatness, there is a plan, and there is beauty.

Woody Allen – legally, ethically, personally – was absolutely a father in our family.

There are some things that other people just don’t want to forgive you for. For instance, Woody Allen and Soon-Yi.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again – one can believe in Woody Allen’s innocence without presuming Dylan Farrow to be a liar.

I’m such a fan of actors and also enjoy watching them work so that I can help their acting in any way I can. Sometimes it walks a tricky line because you want to be entertaining to some degree. But honesty is always entertaining to me. I’m a big Woody Allen and Spike Lee fan, and I find their films to be very honest.

Woody Allen said that 95% of history is explained as a man trying to impress a woman. And that’s true in my life.

For ‘Vicky Cristina Barcelona,’ for example, Woody Allen is one of the greatest American directors, and we really had a very good working relationship. We understand each other really well. He gave me one of the best opportunities somebody has ever given me in my career.

I love ‘Bullets Over Broadway,’ but I’m pretty sure Woody Allen hasn’t killed somebody.

When I first got friendly with Woody, he and Mia were finished with their romance and were just friends. I think Mia would have been just as angry if he had taken up with another actress or his secretary.

When Oliver Stone and Woody Allen came forward to express sympathy for Mr. Weinstein, everybody rolled their eyes at them, too.

People sometimes forget all the films that we’ve done. They remember the likes of ‘Malcolm X’ and ‘Do the Right Thing.’ But I’ve been working since 1986. From the beginning, I was determined to not just be a flash in the pan. I’ve got to keep up with Woody Allen. He’s lapping me.

I love ‘Manhattan’, and I know it’s not one of Woody’s favorites.

My influences as a comedian and filmmaker are Albert Brooks, Lenny Bruce, Woody Allen, Andy Kaufman and John Cassevettes.

I can remember back as far as age 8, performing with the Boston Folk Song Society. It was a Woody Guthrie song.

But in this case, he had my cell phone and my phone was ringing and I had just come back from Australia on the plane and I thought it was my mum and it was Woody Allen just checking to see if I wanted to be in his movie.

Please don’t try and dramatize my relationship with Woody Allen. He was never any kind of father figure to me.

I love having the control over the end result and not having to go through some committee to get something approved. I feel sorry for people, like actors, because unless you’re Woody Allen or Mel Gibson, they don’t have much say in the decisions that affect their work.

Woody Allen is really the ultimate. I love that he believed in himself enough to do what he did. And I have that same feeling – that there’s nobody that looks like me in movies, nobody would cast me as a romantic lead, but I want to do it and I feel confident that I can.

New York in a way functions as another character within the story, as it does within most of Woody Allen’s stories.

Even with politics, stuff comes around again. Woody Guthrie would recognize America today.

Woody Allen is a great dramatist and a great comedian.

I’d still like to work with Woody Allen.

Woody Allen likes to do a lot of master shots. He likes to get the whole thing in one take, and so you could be going along doing a scene, and then the next to last line, all of a sudden, you stumble, and you have to go back to first base.

Working with Woody Allen was extremely gratifying. He has such a vast catalog of great work that doing one of his films was somewhat unreal.

I’m a total fangirl for Nancy Meyers. I love all her movies – ‘Something’s Gotta Give,’ ‘Father of the Bride,’ ‘The Parent Trap,’ etc. I also love Woody Allen – ‘Annie Hall’ and ‘Manhattan’ are my favorites.

Like most kids, I grew up singing ‘This Land Is Your Land’ in grammar school, but with the most radical verses neatly removed. This was before I knew it was a Woody Guthrie song.

I was definitely nervous turning up on my first day to shoot with Woody Allen.

In the the late seventies and early eighties, I played background roles in thirty movies… Woody Allen movies, Scorsese films, you name it. Whatever was being shot in New York, I was doing stand-in and background work because I wanted to be close to the camera; I wanted to see what was going on.

What created democracy was Thomas Paine and Shays’ Rebellion, the suffragists and the abolitionists and on down through the populists and the labor movement, including the Wobblies. Tough, in your face people… Mother Jones, Woody Guthrie… Martin Luther King and Caesar Chavez. And now it’s down to us.

Irish fathers still have certain responsibilities, and by the time my two daughters turned seven, they could swim, ride a bike, sing at least one part of a Woody Guthrie song, and recite all of W. B. Yeats’s ‘The Song of Wandering Aengus.’

I was in Woody Allen’s Stardust Memories in 1980. It was only a bit part and I didn’t get to speak but I felt that I was in a real movie and heading where I had always wanted to be.

I’m ready to do a Woody Allen comedy.

Me and Woody Harrelson, we’re twins. We’re the same person. I should only make movies with him.

I absorbed the vinyl of Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Jack Elliott, to Michael McClure and then into the Beat poets, Allen Ginsberg. At campus, we were absorbing that stuff. We looked to America.

Growing up, I listened to a lot of American singer/songwriters, so a lot of Tom Waits, Paul Simon – also Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan. And bands like Vampire Weekend.

‘Dil Kabaddi’ is an urban comedy about couples breaking up and reconciling. It’s based on one of Woody Allen’s movies. Can’t remember which one.

The only folk I can judge are people like Woody Allen who I think is a genius, largely because I think he has beaten the system. He has his own company, and his films are all his own ideas. It’s his direction, and so it comes out the way he imagined it.

People were talking about songs of the common man in order to make the common man. With Woody Guthrie and Lead Belly, they were so common it was just uncommon.

I think I always have Woody Allen in mind whenever I’m creating anything. He’s such a genius, and I think ‘Annie Hall’ is one of the greatest movies ever written.

Actually, I’m the Scottish Woody Guthrie.

I’ve been watching ‘Knives Out,’ ‘Fight Club’ and many Woody Allen films.

People think of Jews as the Woody Allen stereotype, the nebbishy kind of thing, but that’s not the kind of Jews I know. I know plenty of Israelis and plenty of tough guys that are Jewish. So, I think it makes sense that Jews play metal.

We did that with people like Chris Rock, Woody Harrelson, and the environmentalist Julia Butterfly Hill.

The real achievement of Woody Allen was that he was making movies that felt very personal, and for a whole group of people, it spoke to them. Then he became an archetype, like Groucho Marx or Chaplin.

You know, I was on ‘Cheers’ for eight years, and I couldn’t get another job, and I thought, ‘I’m going to be Woody Boyd forever.’ Which is not bad, but I really thought I was capable of more.

Barbra Streisand has always been an inspiration for me. I admire Jennifer Lopez because she’s been against all the odds, and she’s made such a name for herself, and she can put her name on anything and it sells, and I admire that about her, but Barbara Streisand and Woody Allen are my favorites.

I am definitely writing letters to lots of directors in my mind when I’m making a film. I’m chasing Woody Allen and Godard and Milos Forman and all these people.

I’m such a big fan of Woody Allen. I once tried staying at the same hotel as him, hoping I would bump into him!

My father was a painter. There was a lot of singing. We hung around with a lot of folk musicians. My family knew a lot of great folk musicians of the time, like Woody Guthrie, Paul Robeson, Leadbelly. They were all people we knew.

My influences were Woody Allen and Lenny Bruce.

Woody Harrelson was just so much fun. He’s a child at heart, and he loved being in a ‘Star Wars’ film, I think.

For a long time now, movie characters have generally been articulate, even chatty. Call it the influence of Woody Allen, but we have become used to characters who are well able to explain themselves to others.

First off, I love Woody Allen. His early movies, like ‘Hannah and Her Sisters,’ are incredible. I also love anything by Billy Wilder, Ron Howard and John Hughes. I really grew up on the Hughes films, which are the ones I go back and watch all the time, just to see how they were put together.

Yes, I’m a New Yorker, born and bred. While I’m not quite the L.A. snob that Woody Allen is, I do find myself happier in New York.

Well, obviously I was excited by the idea that Woody Allen was going to direct it. But at the same time, the script itself and the character was really interesting.

I judge a man by the way he treats people who don’t count. Woody Hayes was nice to a lot of people he couldn’t ever use.

Most people think that I heard Bob Dylan first and got a cap and harmonica. Really, it was Woody Guthrie. He was so influential.

In a weird way, I never wanted – I don’t consider myself a very good writer. I consider myself okay; I don’t consider myself great. There’s Woody Allen and Aaron Sorkin. There’s Quentin Tarantino. I’m not ever gonna be on that level. But I do consider myself a good filmmaker.

I love Woody Harrelson. He’s a fine actor.

It was kind of scary because working with Woody Allen becomes sort of a big deal in your mind. He directs in that Woody Allen character some of the time – he has these idiosyncrasies that are really charming and funny.

I’m a great fan of Woody Allen’s movies.

Apart from its famous healing properties, manuka has a strong, woody flavour.

Mia Farrow was the person I was really excited about getting to know because Woody Allen is one of my heroes and, just by proxy, I was a huge fan of hers.

In terms of directing, there’s a number of directors who definitely had a great impact on me, Woody Allen certainly being one of them.

My heroes – people like Woody Allen – were stand-up comedians. Therefore, I always felt I should give it a go.

I prefer to live in the country where it’s quiet. Woody Allen movies there are dubbed into Italian.

Maine is the largest producer of wild blueberries in the world. The woody plants occur naturally in the sandy gravel understory of Maine’s coastal forests, where little else bothers even trying to grow.

There are some parallels between ‘Zombieland’ and ‘Range 15,’ except ‘Zombieland,’ with Woody Harrelson, there’s this pleasurable fun in every scene.

Woody Allen movies are like Beatles songs. I can’t name my favorite without you immediately naming a better one.

Very few people have actually read Freud, but everyone seems prepared to talk about him in that Woody Allen way. To read Freud is not as much fun.

Scooby’s the greatest cartoon character ever. He isn’t cute like Mickey or smart like Bugs or fearless like Woody and Buzz – he’s a talking dog who’s more human than I am. It’s his humanity and imperfections that make him special.

Woody Allen has done some excellent serious movies, too, like Crimes And Misdemeanors. Very overlooked movie, I think, and really his best. And currently I like Big Fish!

When we created ‘Goodness Gracious Me,’ it was quoting ‘Python’ and Woody Allen lines that really bonded the writers, and the ‘Spamalot’ material is so utterly, wonderfully surreal that it hasn’t dated.

Woody Allen’s sense of humour has always attracted me, and I love the way he can make life so meaningful and yet show us what a farce it can be at the same time.

I know that this sounds grand, but I don’t try to compete with other people. I like to think there’s enough pie for everyone. The kind of people I’m competing with are my heroes – Woody Allen, Billy Wilder – who I know I’m going to fall short of.

I’m not a natural writer like, let’s say – I’m not talking about Arthur Miller; that’s a whole other thing – but let’s say Woody Allen. But the more I’ve written, the more I’ve found that there is a deep well in me somewhere that wants to express things that I’m not going to find unless I write them myself.

Woody Allen asked me to improv once. I said no.

When I tell people I spent almost a year in Paris, I know they imagine something out of a Woody Allen movie, which it wasn’t, of course. I was just working in a clothes shop, but I was aware that it was exciting.

You know, I was really privileged to meet Woody Allen, who is now a filmmaker, let’s be honest. He’s also an actor. And he’s classic. And because I have no conception of what classic fashion is now, I respond to his slightly outdated sensibilities.

I felt very fulfilled after doing ‘Vicky Cristina Barcelona’ because I’d always wanted to work with Woody Allen. That was like a lifelong dream, and that was thrilling for me, to enter that world.

I’m sick of hearing, thinking and talking about Woody Allen. Nonetheless, the allegations against him continue to capture our national attention because so much of the story is strange and sordid.

It’d be great to do some other TV. ‘Breaking Bad’ is definitely my home, but I’d love to have a nice hiatus gig, like a recurring role. Or to do a good film. I’d like to do a Woody Allen movie. I really didn’t have a plan, and that’s okay with me.

The process of filmmaking is very musical, you get into the rhythm and the rhythmics of how someone is, especially with Woody Allen who is very much into body language and body movement.