Lady Bird writer and director Greta Gerwig said she will not work for Woody Allen again, after appearing in his 2012 film To Rome With Love.
“If I had known then what I know now, I would not have acted in the film,” she told New York Times columnist Frank Bruni and Molly’s Game writer and director Aaron Sorkin in an interview. “I have not worked for him again, and I will not work for him again.”
Gerwig’s comments come amid a renewed focus on alleged sexual misconduct in Hollywood and an allegation that Allen, in 1993, sexually assaulted 7-year-old Dylan Farrow, the adopted daughter of Allen’s then-partner Mia Farrow. The writer and director has long denied the allegation and he was not prosecuted.
Gerwig said that the recent revelations about sexual misconduct have made her reconsider her decision to work with Allen. In particular, she cited articles by Dylan Farrow.
One was an op-ed in the New York Times, published in 2014 after Allen won the Cecil B. DeMille lifetime achievement award at the Golden Globes. The other was an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times at the start of the #MeToo movement in 2017.
“Dylan Farrow’s two different pieces made me realize that I increased another woman’s pain, and I was heartbroken by that realization,” said Gerwig, who had previously evaded questions about whether she would work with Allen again.
Last year, Dylan Farrow’s brother Ronan Farrow (also Allen and Mia Farrow’s biological son) published a series of groundbreaking articles for the New Yorker about the alleged abuses of Harvey Weinstein.
Her full answer is below:
“I would like to speak specifically to the Woody Allen question, which I have been asked about a couple of times recently, as I worked for him on a film that came out in 2012. It is something that I take very seriously and have been thinking deeply about, and it has taken me time to gather my thoughts and say what I mean to say. I can only speak for myself and what I’ve come to is this: If I had known then what I know now, I would not have acted in the film. I have not worked for him again, and I will not work for him again. Dylan Farrow’s two different pieces made me realize that I increased another woman’s pain, and I was heartbroken by that realization. I grew up on his movies, and they have informed me as an artist, and I cannot change that fact now, but I can make different decisions moving forward.”