Rebecca Hall expresses 'regret' over her 2018 apology for working with Woody Allen (original) (raw)

Back in 2018, Rebecca Hall issued a public apology for working with controversial director Woody Allen on two films. Now she's not so sure she's sorry after all.

"I struggle with this one," the actress said in a new interview The Guardian. "It's very unlike me to make a public statement about anything. I make the stuff, that's how I am political. I don't think of myself as an 'actor-vist', I'm not that person. And, I kind of regret making that statement, because I don't think it's the responsibility of his actors to speak to that situation."

Hall first worked with Allen on the 2008 film Vicky Cristina Barcelona, which launched her to a new level of renown. After reuniting with him a decade later on A Rainy Day in New York, the actress apologized for her actions and donated her salary from the film to the Time's Up Legal Defense Fund. But that move, she said, "just became, 'another person denounces Woody Allen and regrets working with him,' which is not what I said actually. I don't regret working with him. He gave me a great job opportunity and he was kind to me."

Woody Allen and Rebecca Hall in 2008.

Walter McBride/Corbis via Getty

Representatives for Hall and Allen didn't immediately respond to Entertainment Weekly's request for comment Monday.

When asked how she would respond if she were caught up in similar circumstances today, Hall told The Guardian she "wouldn't say anything — my policy actually is to be an artist. Don't come out and state your stuff so much. I don't think that makes me apathetic or not engaged. I just think it's my job."

As for what isn't her job? "I don't think that we should be the ones who are doing judge and jury on this," she said.

Allen has been a controversial figure for decades. In 1992, his ex Mia Farrow publicly alleged that he molested their 7-year-old adopted daughter, Dylan Farrow. The accusation came some months after Farrow discovered that Allen had entered into a relationship with her 21-year-old adopted daughter, Soon-Yi Previn.

Dylan Farrow reiterated the allegations herself in 2013, and in 2021 participated in the documentary Allen v. Farrow, in which she told her story publicly and in full for the first time. Allen has consistently denied the allegations against him and has never been charged with a crime.

Rebecca Hall in 2024.

River Callaway/WWD via Getty

The continuing controversy has prompted comment from many stars of Allen's films, from those who defend him, like Gina Gershon ("He's a genius") and Diane Keaton ("I ccontinue to believe him"), to those who denounce him, like Greta Gerwig ("I will not work for him again") and formerly Hall.

Hall remembers the bombshell allegations against mega-producer Harvey Weinstein dropping during the Rainy Day in New York shoot as a major influence in her initial decision to speak out against Allen. "I was outside, shooting a street scene with Jude Law where, literally, my dialogue was, 'You've got to stop sleeping with these f---ing 15-year-olds,'" she recalled. "And that day, the Weinstein scandal breaks. There's a bank of journalists and paparazzi right there, because Weinstein's a producer on it, and they're all listening to me say this."

Hall described being "in a tangle. Like, in this moment, it's the most important thing to believe the women. Yes, of course, there's going to be complications and nuances in these stories, but we're redressing a balance here. So I felt like I wanted to do something definitive."

Allen announced his retirement from filmmaking in 2022 after completing his 50th feature as a director, Coup De Chance. But shortly after, representatives for the director clarified that "Woody Allen never said he was retiring," merely that "he said he was thinking about not making films as making films that go straight or very quickly to streaming platforms is not so enjoyable for him, as he is a great lover of the cinema experience."

Allen indicated in April that retirement may, again, be on, as for him, "all the romance of filmmaking is gone." Hall meanwhile is starring in the BBC thriller The Listeners.

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