TERRY GROSS: When people love somebody's art they become very interested in the artist and that leads them to be interested in the artist's personal life or what they can find out about it. And it's like some of your fans felt just upset, and in some ways even betrayed maybe, because of your marriage to Soon-Yi. And they started reevaluating well, do see his films differently now? Do you think it's fair or wrong to have, to evaluate an artist's work by what, by decisions they've made or what you think of decisions they've made in their personal life or do you think that that's...
Transcript
GROSS: When people love somebody's art they become very interested in the artist and that leads them to be interested in the artist's personal life or what they can find out about it. And it's like some of your fans felt just upset, and in some ways even betrayed maybe, because of your marriage to Soon-Yi. And they started reevaluating well, do see his films differently now? Do you think it's fair or wrong to have, to evaluate an artist's work by what, by decisions they've made or what you think of decisions they've made in their personal life or do you think that that's...
Mr. ALLEN: I think you can evaluate an artist any way you choose to. You're free to evaluate an artist in any way that you want to based on anything that makes you happy.
GROSS: And do you care what people think of your personal life? Or is that just irrelevant to you?
Mr. ALLEN: Well, you know, if I say I don't care, it sounds so cold and callous. But let me put it this way. How could you go through life, you know, taking direction from the outside world? I mean, what kind of life would you have, you know, if you were - if you made your decisions based on, you know, the outside world and not what your inner dictates told you? You would have a very inauthentic life.
