Woody Allen calls Bruni film rumours 'psychotic'

Veteran film director Woody Allen has slammed as ‘psychotic’ recent reports in the Daily Mail that Carla Bruni flopped on the set of his film Midnight in Paris, which stars Owen Wilson and Marion Cotillard.

It is the second time that Allen has jumped to the French First Lady’s defence after a first damning report on July 29 accused Bruni of repeatedly looking at the camera during the filming of a scene with Wilson.

According to the Mail story, Woody had to re-shoot the scene, in which Bruni walks out of a bakery holding a baguette, 35 times.

As The First Post reported last month, this hardly seemed likely, given Allen’s well-known reluctance to re-shoot scenes unless absolutely necessary.

Allen gave an interview to the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera saying Bruni had been “very professional” in her small part as a guide at the Rodin Museum and that every frame he shot with her would appear in the movie - “nothing will be cut".

Then, on September 9, the Mail came out with yet another story – claiming Bruni was so bad that Allen had hired a 25-year-old actress, Lea Seydoux, to reshoot all Bruni’s scenes and that the First Lady faced the humiliation of being cut from the movie altogether.

Now Allen has sought to quash the rumours once and for all. Speaking at the Toronto International Film Festival, he said, “For some reason there have been an enormous amount of outrageous rumours. The first rumour was that I did 32 takes with her. Never, ever. She was just fine as an actress. I did the normal amount of takes with her as with anyone else.”

“The other, psychotic rumour was that I replaced her in the movie with another actress. Totally untrue, she’s in the movie, everything she shot is in the movie, she was a good actress, she was a delight to work with and why there are all these crazy rumours about her I don’t know.”

Woody, who was in Toronto for the premiere of his latest film, You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger, also dismissed claims that President Sarkozy was so annoyed at his wife’s lack of acting talent that he caused a scene on set.

“He came, we gave him headphones, he heard her act and said, ‘She’s wonderful, my wife is a natural’.”

“Either press people have it in for the Sarkozys or they want to sell newspapers but they are completely fabricated rumours not even based on a germ of truth.” ·