Woody Allen now facing backlash
NEW YORK — A growing number of actors are distancing themselves from Woody Allen and his next film, heightening questions about the future of the prolific 82-year-old filmmaker in a Hollywood newly sensitive to allegations of sexual misconduct.
Timothee Chalamet said he will donate his salary for an upcoming Woody Allen film to three charities fighting sexual harassment and abuse: Time’s Up, the LGBT Center in New York and RAINN. The breakout star of “Call Me By Your Name” announced on Instagram that he didn’t want to profit from his work on Allen’s “A Rainy Day in New York,” which wrapped shooting in the fall.
“I want to be worthy of standing shoulder to shoulder with the brave artists who are fighting for all people to be treated with the respect and dignity they deserve,” said Chalamet.
Chalamet is just the latest cast member of an Allen production to express regret or guilt about being professionally associated with the director. In recent weeks, Rebecca Hall (“A Rainy Day in New York,” “Vicky Cristina Barcelona”), Mira Sorvino (“Mighty Aphrodite”), Ellen Page (“To Rome With Love”), Da- vid Krumholtz (“Wonder Wheel”) and Griffith Newman (“A Rainy Day in New York”) have all in some way distanced themselves from Allen or vowed that they wouldn’t work with him again.
The rising chorus suggests the road ahead for Allen may be particularly challenging, even for a director whose personal controversies have for decades made him an alternatively beloved and reviled figure in movies. Financial support for the filmmaker has not previously waned in part because of the eagerness many stars have for working with a cinematic legend. But fielding a starry cast may prove increasingly difficult for Allen in a movie industry in the midst of a “Me Too” reckoning.
“If I had known then what I know now, I would not have acted in the film,” Greta Gerwig, who co-starred in Allen’s 2012 comedy “To Rome With Love,” told The New York Times last week. “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.”
Dylan Farrow, Allen’s adopted daughter, has said Allen molested her in an attic in 1992 when she was seven. Allen, who has long denied the allegations, was investigated for the incident but not charged.