Woody Allen talks about his time in Kádár’s Hungary

Woody Allen talks about his time in Hungary during Kádár’s regime while filming his movie Love and Death in Budapest, his experience with a Russian soldier, as well as other things.

In the interview Allen gave to magyarnarancs.hu, he touched upon topics such as his lawsuit, the afterlife, and how he liked the Hungarian capital during his stay in the 1970s.

“Budapest was beautiful, it proved to be a great location, but the presence of the occupant Russian soldiers could be sensed,” says Allen.

He remembers that the soldiers had nothing to do, so he and his fellow filmmakers could put them in the movie, which is a funny war movie. The soldiers were excited, because they were bored of occupying Hungary, according to the famous director.

They did everything as they were meant to. “It was an ideal situation, soldiers playing soldiers, which they did authentically.” They were paid mostly in cigarettes, boxes of cigarettes, but Woody says this was still much cheaper than what he would have had to pay in the States if he wanted to have, say, 500 soldiers in one of his movies.