To call Woody Allen phobic would be an understatement. Among the director’s many pet peeves and neurotic fears: boats, planes, sunlight, darkness, dogs, deer, the sound of crickets chirping, driving, bridges, and enclosed spaces. (Allen reportedly once took a hundred mile detour just to keep from having to pass through a tunnel.) Elevators freak him out. He has admitted to sometimes buying a newspaper prior to a brief elevator ride “because I didn’t want to be alone with my thoughts in the elevator for thirty seconds.” He so hates to ride in the contraptions that he forced stars Christina Ricci and Jason Biggs to climb three flights of stairs to appear at a news conference prior to a screening of his 2003 film Anything Else. Bright colors also unnerve Allen-one of the reasons he always wears drab earth tones in his films. When outdoors, Allen has been known to walk around in a beekeeper’s mask to protect himself from insects.
But germs are by far his main bugaboo. He is so paranoid about microbial invaders that he forbade then-girlfriend Mia Farrow from using dishes, demanding that she use disposable paper plates and cups instead. He refused to sleep at her house until she installed a separate shower and then declared that he couldn’t use it because the drain was in the middle of the tub rather than off to the side, putting his precious feet closer to dirty water. Farrow’s penchant for adopting infants only exacerbated Allen’s germophobia. By his own admission, he would flee Farrow’s apartment whenever she had to change a baby’s diaper. And when Farrow broached the subject of switching from polyester to cotton bedsheets, Allen needed several weeks of therapy before agreeing to the change.
