Woody Allen Shares His Muses With W Magazine

Woody Allen is something of a mystery to me. While his talent is obviously reinforced by his unquestionable success, his slightly disconcerting habits leave me wondering if it is truly a blessing to be considered one of Woody’s “muses”. Mariel Hemingway, 16 at the time of being cast in Manhattan describes her experiences of a first kiss with Allen to W Magazine, “My first real make-out session in my life was with Woody in a hansom cab in front of a camera crew. Before the scene, I practiced making out on my arm in front of the mirror. After we had done the scene once, I said to the cinematographer, Gordon Willis, ‘We don’t have to do that again, do we?’” (W Magazine).

Without fail, Woody’s films revolve around a character not unlike himself- in intelligence and neurosis which seems to foretell something of his hubris. His character always cultivates a relationship with a beautiful, mysterious lead female.

In this respect however, Allen shows his prowess and gains my admiration in creating female characters that are real in their complexities and humanity- a far cry from the many one dimensional characters that define a new age of Hollywood that categorizes women into boxes- mother, wife, bimbo, mistress.

With Allen’s 11th film being screened in Cannes this year, W Magazine takes a look at some of the muses that have inspired his films and won an incredible 11 Academy Award nominations and five Oscars. See the gorgeous pics below, and head to W Magazine for the full story.