Café Society opens in the UK today. In the lead-up, there’s been some more interviews with the cast, including a couple of new video interviews, and features with Allen, and stars Jesse Eisenberg and Blake Lively.
Allen first. Here’s Allen, talking about wealth and playing the lottery with the Guardian.
In a new interview with inews, he talks about Crisis In Six Scenes and praises Eisenberg.
Jesse’s a very good actor. If I’d played that part, I may have gotten more laughs, but it wouldn’t have been as interesting.
He also passingly jokes he’s not interested in making a Marvel film, but would act in one. Does Marvel need a Willie Lumpkin?
With the BBC, he talked about the violence in the film, and how audiences shouldn’t be surprised.
Right from the start, Take the Money and Run – even though it was a silly picture, I played a gangster. I made Match Point which was a murder picture, as was Cassandra’s Dream and Irrational Man and Manhattan Murder Mystery. I’m not graphic in general, but here it was indicated. I was writing about my background, and that was what happened.
Here’s more Allen, as well as Eisenberg and Lively talks to This Morning
Eisenberg has been living in London, performing in his own play The Spoils. He didn’t do much US press, but seems to be making up for it with some interviews for the UK release.
A great new video with Eisenberg, he discusses how he has different interpretation of the film as a whole, and how his performance is different from Allen.
And more from Eisenberg
What does Jesse Eisenberg have in common with his #CafeSociety character? Over to the man himself to find out… pic.twitter.com/TJrtgEcTlw
— Warner Bros. UK (@WarnerBrosUK) August 31, 2016
Eisenberg also spoke to the Independent in Ireland. He told them:
Woody Allen is just so efficient and clever that he’s able to make these wonderful movies in a way which no one else is working. He shoots efficiently, and yet the acting is wonderful and the film looks beautiful.
Eisenberg also spoke to Movies.ie about how Allen puts his films together.
He has such an unusual way of not only working on set but he has an unusual way of putting together his movies. Most movies, especially at the kind of budget level that he is working at – which is to say, an independent film budget – they spend a year trying to get famous actors to sign on, who could then get the European financing and American financing, whereas Woody knows that he is going to make his movie on this particular date, and he just asks actors to do it, and if they are unavailable he asks the next actor on his list, so it’s a very streamlined process.
Finally, Blake Lively turns out to be a big Woody Allen fan.
Lively in particular has raved about how much fun she had on set. She told the Guardian:
The movie you see is often very different from the movie you shoot. The magic comes together in post-production. But when you’re on a Woody Allen set, you look around and think: ‘We’re making a Woody Allen movie!’ He creates the environment around you. If there’s a band playing, it’s not someone turning on a boombox. It’s a band playing from the beginning of the take. You have to speak loudly.
She told the Independent about how great Allen has been for writing female characters.
I didn’t care if it was one line, one scene, or playing a janitor. He’s one of the few filmmakers who really, really writes to women. They’re fully realised women; they’re not one thing or the other. You’re not hired to be the intellect or the bimbo… so you’re not thinking, ‘I’m going to be the tart of the film’ or ‘I’m going to be the intellectual bitch.’ You know that the woman will be multi-faceted and not thin-sliced.
Movies.ie also talked to Lively. She talked about Annie Hall, Manhattan, Love And Death and another, less mentioned, Woody Allen classic.
I think all of Woody’s fans are romantic. One of his romantic movies is about a murder; ‘Manhattan Murder Mystery’ is such a beautiful beautiful examination of a marriage that has gone stale and two people finding excitement together again. That’s a complete love story and it’s a suspense thriller about a neighbour that has been murdered. I think all of his films are helplessly romantic.
Café Society opens in the UK today! Go see it!
