G-Rock from the Westside, from Allen Temple. He gave my name, The Future; he was like, 'Man, you the future.' Just stuck with the name.
As a boy, I was a member of a club run by the famous reptile showman Ross Allen, and the club sent its members pseudoscientific papers mimeographed on construction paper with a three-hole punch.
New York in a way functions as another character within the story, as it does within most of Woody Allen's stories.
I grew up with Woody Allen and early Spike Lee movies in which New York was such a specific character. The city has a certain vibe and beat which really informs your entire existence.
What is ironic is that Allen Ginsberg's importance was in its twilight for so many years that it took his death to bring it to the front page. He electrified an entire world!
I'm such a big fan of Woody Allen. I once tried staying at the same hotel as him, hoping I would bump into him!
Oddly, a search for 'jeggings' in my email inbox shows that my first exposure to the phenomenon came from - wait for it - Mike Allen of 'Politico,' who helpfully explained the concept on December 20, 2009.
I'm a writer and director, and the movie I've seen a million times is 'Stardust Memories' by Woody Allen, starring Woody Allen and Charlotte Rampling.
Our distorted media culture sees men as subjects and women as objects; in films, Woody Allen gets older and older and still dates 20-year-old babes; movies about women are called 'chick flicks,' and men make fun of them.
I did 'Celebrity' by Woody Allen. I did 'The Gingerbread Man' with Robert Altman. These were big talents.
There's an assumption that my audience is all these bearded twats from Dalston. But actually, quite a lot of older people go. For them, it's like pre-alternative comedy, when there was Dave Allen or Jackie Mason or someone. Also, weirdly, because I don't really swear, they're not scared off.
You don't ever really get to know Woody Allen.
You probably can't name more than a handful of comedies that would qualify for Best Picture. I can think of a lot of comedy screenplays; Woody Allen has had numerous nominations for his screenplays. But most comedies are calculated. They tend to pander. They're not about anything important.
Whatever people want to say, we go out there every night, and we give tribute to the songs that my brother wrote, to Ronnie and Allen Collins and Steve Gaines and Leon Wilkeson and everybody. We pay tribute every night to those people who have gone on.
I went through this very serious Woody Allen phase in college and a little bit after college. I still see his movies.
I attended Amherst College from 1951 to 1955. The first two years were a revelation. There were innumerable exchanges with brilliant classmates, among them the playwright Ralph Allen, the classics scholar Robert Fagles, and the composer Michael Sahl.
I am definitely writing letters to lots of directors in my mind when I'm making a film. I'm chasing Woody Allen and Godard and Milos Forman and all these people.
Very few people have actually read Freud, but everyone seems prepared to talk about him in that Woody Allen way. To read Freud is not as much fun.
I've got deep roots in Kalamazoo, with a grandfather, Harold Allen, who was a big part of Upjohn Co. for many years as the corporate secretary and friends with W. E. Upjohn.
The real achievement of Woody Allen was that he was making movies that felt very personal, and for a whole group of people, it spoke to them. Then he became an archetype, like Groucho Marx or Chaplin.
But nothing beats a Woody Allen film on a Sunday night, with a glass of wine and some leftovers.
I felt very fulfilled after doing 'Vicky Cristina Barcelona' because I'd always wanted to work with Woody Allen. That was like a lifelong dream, and that was thrilling for me, to enter that world.
Edward Snowden, who worked for Booz Allen Hamilton, professes to have had access to whatever he wanted to know about anyone's anything. If he's telling the truth, why does he have such permeability without any government oversight? Is that OK with you?
Look at Allen Ginsberg. In poems like 'Kaddish' and 'Howl,' you can hear a cantor between the lines. It's fully alive, and I think that's what's missing in modern poetry. It's too dry and cerebral.
I love doing comedy, and that's the thing I will always go back to, really, but I'd love to have the freedom to do sort of 'meaty' roles but also have the freedom to do the sort of films I want to make, like what Woody Allen does. You forget he's funny because you're so gripped by the story, but they still make you laugh.
I prefer to live in the country where it's quiet. Woody Allen movies there are dubbed into Italian.
My influences were Woody Allen and Lenny Bruce.
I'm not a natural writer like, let's say - I'm not talking about Arthur Miller; that's a whole other thing - but let's say Woody Allen. But the more I've written, the more I've found that there is a deep well in me somewhere that wants to express things that I'm not going to find unless I write them myself.
There are some things that other people just don't want to forgive you for. For instance, Woody Allen and Soon-Yi.
We can never prove that we're alone in the universe. But the Allen Telescope Array could prove that we're not.
He's helped me do so much in my career, helped me be the player that I am. If there's no Larry Brown, then there's no MVP, Allen Iverson.
Whatever I had to prove in the 'Flash' world about myself as an actor, I proved as Henry Allen.
Working with Woody Allen is like filming Howard Hughes's will. It's a very mysterious and strange event. You never get a peek at the whole will.
For me it's just amazing that I grew up watching Tim Duncan and KG and Kobe and Paul Pierce, Allen Iverson and all those guys and now it's like, 'Man, I can't believe they actually got old.' It's like they actually walked away. It's crazy to think about, but the game has to keep moving.
I know about the sweet home. I went to school with 'em boys, what became Lynyrd Skynyrd; I knew Allen Collins, the skinny girl-beautiful guitarist. I put Allen Collins in every travel piece I do. Travel writing is harrowing, going to Bermuda with a banjo on my knee.
I'm ready to do a Woody Allen comedy.
