I don’t understand why people make me want to make music that’s a join-the-dots thing by numbers. I find it really difficult when people say, ‘Aw, you should have made a really big hip hop record, that would have been really good for you’ or, ‘You should have made a song like Lily Allen, that would have been so great.’
When you have players like Aaron Ramsey, Gareth Bale, and Joe Allen, you’ve got to play football.
I’m a huge Bob Hope fan, up until about the late ’50s. I’ve seen so many of his movies up until then, and they’re a big influence on me and a big influence on Woody Allen, who is basically just ripping off Bob Hope for his first five or six movies.
I grew up on Edgar Allen Poe, and I loved Alfred Hitchcock’s movies.
I used to love Woody Allen but feel he’s become a hack as a director. ‘Bullets Over Broadway’ is the only film of his I’ve enjoyed in the last 10 years.
If Woody Allen called me, I’d be there straight away. Who wouldn’t? Truly.
The reason I do what I do is because I was influenced by Steve Martin, by Woody Allen, by Bob Newhart, by Carol Burnett, by Lucille Ball.
I’m a huge Woody Allen fan. Good movie, bad movie, it doesn’t matter – I just like his movies.
The first time I recorded without Allen Toussaint, I wanted to do doo-wop. Everything I’ve done since then has got some kind of doo-wop essence in it.
I was fortunate to have people like Althea Gibson come and speak to me, also Leslie Allen and Arthur Ashe. So I feel obligated, part of my duty, to continue to pass on the knowledge I’ve learned to youngsters and adults alike.
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.
The reality is, the movies that were most impactful to me growing up, when I decided I wanted to make movies, I was going to see Woody Allen double features with my brother, back when they had double features.
Bob Dylan is out of the mentorship of Allen Ginsberg.
It’d be great to do some other TV. ‘Breaking Bad’ is definitely my home, but I’d love to have a nice hiatus gig, like a recurring role. Or to do a good film. I’d like to do a Woody Allen movie. I really didn’t have a plan, and that’s okay with me.
I’m a fan of Louis C.K., I’m a fan of Lena Dunham. I love shows about people that other people would consider unlikable, or, like, the work of Woody Allen and Albert Brooks.
I may look like an American WASPy doctor or lawyer, but I feel just like Woody Allen. Don’t cast me for my looks – I have a very ironic, existential, crazy Jew in me.
Willie Roaf kicked my butt a couple of times. Larry Allen was a guard, but one time in San Francisco he took me with one hand and threw me out of the play. Walter Jones was pretty tough, too.
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’m doing research for a large comic book on the Beat Generation guys – Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac and those guys.
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.
My influences were Woody Allen and Lenny Bruce.
Well, obviously I was excited by the idea that Woody Allen was going to direct it. But at the same time, the script itself and the character was really interesting.
I grew up watching his movies; I know everyone did, but I really feel that a lot of my formative years were informed by Woody Allen films.
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.
There’s guys that don’t need to play with the ball. Tony Allen doesn’t need to have the ball to be effective.
Being in a Woody Allen film. I cherish it.
People sometimes forget all the films that we’ve done. They remember the likes of ‘Malcolm X’ and ‘Do the Right Thing.’ But I’ve been working since 1986. From the beginning, I was determined to not just be a flash in the pan. I’ve got to keep up with Woody Allen. He’s lapping me.
I was influenced by big, strong voices – writers like Elizabeth Bowen, Virginia Woolf, Jane Bowles; gay writers like Ed White, Michael Cunningham, Allen Hollinghurst; and contemporary lesbian writers, like Dorothy Allison.
I turned down more offers to be Jack Paar or Johnny Carson or Steve Allen before the people on the ‘Donna Reed Show’ gave me a chance to earn while I learned.
My early prose style – this is so embarrassing – was sort of a suburban, Presbyterian knockoff of Woody Allen.
Klay Thompson, Ray Allen, CJ McCollum, Steve Nash and Bradley Beal are the guys that’s I’ve watched, just picking different things from each player.
George Allen was afraid of my image. He wasn’t afraid of me.
The act of thinking and interpreting is so central to Judaism that it makes more sense that we’ve become people like Woody Allen – thinkers and talkers and drafters of law.
The first play I did was ‘Philadelphia Here I Come.’ Can you imagine that? I am 37 years old I am doing my second professional play and I am on stage with John Malkovich. Joan Allen, Laurie Metcalf and Gary Sinise. One huge name after another. I was terrified and petrified, could hardly get a word out of my mouth.
I’d love to open a private museum in Paris, London, or New York, but I don’t have the money. If I were Bill Gates or Paul Allen, the first thing I would do is build a museum.
The record company doesn’t know what to do with me, because I’m not a Lily Allen, but I’m not really an indie artist, either. All the best artists have been in the middle.
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?
Everyone thinks Lily Allen is this brash, bold, funny person. It was all just a bit of a facade and bravado.
Of course my uncle was a giant, but my dad, in particular, had the house filled with these great Dixieland jazz stars, really the best of them: Henry Red Allen, Willie ‘The Lion’ Smith, Buster Bailey, Cutty Cutshall, Tyree Glenn, Zutty Singleton. These are all big names in the Dixieland world.
Tony Allen is a good defender, very smart.
Recording with Meek Mill for me was like when Allen Iverson played with Michael Jordan for the first time.
It tickles me to beat George Allen.
All the people I looked up to – Roseanne, Tim Allen, and Jerry Seinfeld – were stand-up comedians who used humor to get TV shows. I’m on TV now, and I’m working towards getting my own show.
I’m doing a new musical on Broadway, which opens in October called ‘The Boy from Oz,’ where I play Peter Allen. For those of you who don’t know, he became first famous in America for marrying Liza Minelli.
Interestingly that some of the characters did not turn out the way Jim and Allen had envisioned them.
I did ‘Celebrity’ by Woody Allen. I did ‘The Gingerbread Man’ with Robert Altman. These were big talents.
Even while in school – initially, Vineberg Allen in Mussourie, and later, a number of schools in Ludhiana – I aspired to achieve great things in life. Admittedly, I wasn’t quite sure about what these great things would be.
I just admire people like Woody Allen, who every year writes an original screenplay. It’s astonishing. I always wished that I could do that.
I’ve known Russell Allen for over a decade now, and I’ve always thought he was a very underrated singer. He has one of the best voices in the business I’ve ever heard.
My heroes – people like Woody Allen – were stand-up comedians. Therefore, I always felt I should give it a go.
You know, I was really privileged to meet Woody Allen, who is now a filmmaker, let’s be honest. He’s also an actor. And he’s classic. And because I have no conception of what classic fashion is now, I respond to his slightly outdated sensibilities.
You can’t be Allen Iverson on a football team. And even Iverson got run out of Philadelphia when he was still a spectacular talent because the Sixers got tired of the headache and his bad attitude.
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.
Once I made a boyfriend dress up as Woody Allen from ‘Annie Hall.’
I am – you know, I’m getting to do everything I’ve ever wanted to do, anything my imagination can think up. I’m getting to play with some of my favorite musicians in the world, ranging from Russell Allen to Billy Sheehan to Paul Gilbert to Steve Morse.
I’m not just influenced by the ’60s – it’s who I am. I grew up with Allen Ginsberg and Che Guevara. I flirted with various forms of communism when it was way out of style. It was this really strange and creative time in music and culture, and it was fabulous.
Woody Allen movies are like Beatles songs. I can’t name my favorite without you immediately naming a better one.
My influences as a comedian and filmmaker are Albert Brooks, Lenny Bruce, Woody Allen, Andy Kaufman and John Cassevettes.
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.
