Woody Allen says Robert De Niro snubbed a chance to work with him because the director couldn’t afford his huge wage demands.
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The Oscar-winning filmmaker singled out De Niro, Jack Nicholson and Dustin Hoffman as actors who had turned him down over pay.
Allen said: “There are plenty of actors and actresses that say they are desperate to work with me but then they are not available or they can’t work for the pay I’m offering. A lot of the time they get the chance to earn UKP4 million or UKP5 million and they need the money.
“I couldn’t afford De Niro, Nicholson or Hoffman.”
Allen, 72, makes most of his films on relatively low budgets of around UKP7.5 million.
He wanted to get Nicholson or Tom Hanks for the lead role in his film The Curse of the Jade Scorpion but they both turned him down.
Allen insists it’s not just male leads that he has problems casting. Emma Thompson and Reese Witherspoon have both been unsuccessfully approached about roles in his films.
He has been filming in Europe rather than Hollywood for his last four films, saying his productions are better received by audiences there. Allen made three consecutive films in London – Match Point, Scoop and Cassandra’s Dream.
His latest movie Vicky Cristina Barcelona was shot in Spain and premiered at last month’s Cannes film festival, in France.
