On acting on camera for the first time in six years
I've always liked to act and when I write a script, I look at it and if there's a part I can play, I play it. In the last half-dozen scripts I've written, there hasn't really been anything I felt I could do. But with this script, I looked at it and I saw a part I'd be able to play. I've been performing for years -- I made my first film in 1968 -- and I've always been open to acting in other people's films, but nobody has ever asked me to be in their films over the years. Two or three times I've been asked and I've always said yes. But two or three times in 30 years [isn't that much]. So when John Turturro asked if I would be in his new film Fading Gigolo, which he was shooting in New York City, I said sure. I was happy to do it. I've always enjoyed acting.

On the commercial success of Midnight in Paris, which became the highest-grossing movie of his career
It was a happy accident. I have no idea why everyone embraced the picture so enthusiastically. You make a movie and some pictures they like a little bit, some they like a lot and some they don't like at all. It's very capricious for the filmmaker. But [Midnight in Paris] was the best attendance I'd ever had on a picture. It's a complete mystery to me. To me, it's no more appealing than Vicky Christina Barcelona or Match Point or Annie Hall or Husbands and Wives. To me, they all have the same appeal or lack of appeal.

On his editing room process
When you make a film, you start off with great ambitions -- you want to make Citizen Kane. Then you shoot the film and when you get into the editing room, you realize that you screwed up so irredeemably that you will edit the film in any configuration to avoid embarrassment. You put the beginning at the end, you take the middle out, you change things; the editing process becomes the floundering of a drowning man and that's been it for me from the start of my career. From the first movie I ever directed, Take the Money and Run, it was a fight for survival in the editing room. For me, it's not just that you go in there and you have various themes and you're going to edit the movie like its Potemkin or something. I'm just in there selling out left and right, every last ounce of integrity I have. I'm editing to survive. [With Rome] I decided to do a cavalcade of stories and edited them logically so that when you left one story you weren't disappointed coming in on a new one. You got caught up in the new one sufficiently to forget the old one for five minutes and go with the new one. We worked that out as logically as we could.

On shooting his first film in Rome
Rome is a provocative city to shoot in. It's visually very arresting, there's a great Italian film tradition and there are certain things in the Italian sensibility that make you want to tell certain different stories. There are certain stories that occurred to me that were indigenous to Rome -- something with opera, something with the paparazzi, these are all things that for me are very, very Roman. It's such an amusing, vibrant city as opposed to if I was making a film in Berlin or Brussels or something where there's a completely different sensibility. I thought of several Italian films while making the movie and one of them is one of my favorite Fellini films, The White Sheik. I've loved Italian cinema so much, that stuff creeps into your pores and you do it without even knowing you're doing it.

On directing actors who speak a foreign language
I don't speak any Italian myself, but I also don't speak Spanish and I made a film in Spain. You don't have to know the language. You can understand when an actor is great; you can see them acting and they're convincing in their body language. It's not hard to direct someone in another language. I've mentioned this before: when I did Vicky Christina Barcelona, Javier Bardem and Penélope Cruz were ad-libbing all over the place. I didn't understand what they were saying; to this day I have no idea what they said in certain scenes. But it didn't matter to me. I could see that they got it right. They were acting in the correct fashion for that moment. It didn't matter what the actual words were, the emotions were clearly direct.

On his prolific writing process
In the course of a year, you make a film and things happen. You read the newspapers, you live your life and things occur to you as potentially interesting stories. I usually make notes and at the end of the year I have all these scraps of paper and look at them. Many of them are meaningless, but once in a while, I pull out a scrap of paper and it will occur to me that there's something there and I write it. Sometimes I'll think of a full story spontaneously. Now if I don't have anything, I'm good at forcing the issue because I used to be a television writer years and years ago during the years of live television. We'd come in on Monday morning and there'd be a show on Saturday night and you had to have a show ready to go into rehearsal by Thursday. You couldn't wait for your muse to visit you, you had to sit there and come up with something. I can do that if I have to; I don't like to, because it's painful. But I can do that, sit in a room and think and think and drum up something. This is the only thing I can do; I can't do anything else, but this I can do -- I can come up with stories.

On why he shoots overseas rather than in New York these days
That's where the money comes from. I have trouble getting funded. On every picture, it's a scramble. I make the movies for very little money and everyone is nice to work for very little money. But I still have trouble raising that very little money. But in Europe and other places, Asia and South America, people call up and say, "If you make a picture here, we'll pay for it." That's how it started with Match Point and then Barcelona called and then France called and then Italy called. A number of other countries have asked if I'd make pictures there and I can't afford not to because they fund the pictures. Now I was able, through a series of very clever con games, to raise the money to be able to make my next picture in the U.S., but I really had to tap dance and lie and I'm going to make it a little bit in New York and a little bit in San Francisco. It was tough to raise that money; it would have been easier if I just said yes to one of the foreign countries and worked there.

The cast on their experience working with Woody Allen
Alec Baldwin: With Woody Allen you have someone responsible for more memorable moments on every level than any other person that's ever lived in film really. I've always said that even his less successful efforts are better than most other films you see and then when you see some of the greatest ones, they're some of the greatest movies ever made. So when he calls you and asks if you're available -- you go. Because you want to hitch a ride on that; this is a guy who is on his own island of filmmaking I think.
Penélope Cruz: I've been very lucky to work with him twice and the first time I was terrified because you hear all these stories about him and my first meeting with him was so peculiar. It was 30 seconds long and he told me, "Nice to meet you, I think you will be great in this role. I'll see you on the set." And then I left and I never saw him again until we were on set! I was terrified of being fired and was trying to look at him and forget all the admiration and respect and beautiful moments I had experienced thanks to his work. If you don't try to put that aside and focus on what you have to do, you would be starstruck the whole time.
Greta Gerwig: I love his films more than I love any films. I grew up watching his movies over and over again and spent a lot of time imitating characters from his movies. I learned what books to read by references in his movies, like Death in Venice? I read that because it was mentioned [in Annie Hall]. I wouldn't live in New York if it wasn't for his movies and I wouldn't want to be an actor if it weren't for his movies.
Ellen Page: I was very, very nervous, probably the most I've ever been to shoot a film, probably because the role was also a bit of a departure for me, perhaps. Having that opportunity was wonderful, but also intimidating. But the experience of working with him was wonderful. I felt able to explore and you're working with such wonderful material and wonderful people, it's [a great experience].

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