BY CORKY SIEMASZKO
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Tuesday, November 1st, 2005
Woody Allen may be Soon-Yi Previn's husband, but he's still her daddy.
"It's got a more paternal feeling to it," the reclusive director tells Vanity Fair of his once-scandalous romance.
In a wide-ranging interview about everything from art to adultery, he explains: "I love to do things to make her happy. She loves to do things to make me happy."
The reputation of New York's best-known neurotic took a near fatal hit in 1992 when then-girlfriend Mia Farrow exposed his affair with her adopted daughter, Soon-Yi. Not only was Allen 35 years older, he was a father figure to Soon-Yi and to Farrow's other adopted children.
Allen, soon to be 70 years old, now calls Farrow's discovery of his nude pictures of Soon-Yi "one of the great pieces of luck in my life."
"All the women I went out with were basically my age," he says. "Now, here, it just works like magic. The very inequality of me being older and much more accomplished, much more experienced, takes away any real meaningful conflict."
Allen, whose about-to-be released movie "Match Point" stars Scarlett Johansson and is already getting good buzz, insists there's no drama in his real life - and he's fine with that.
"My shrink said to me a long time ago, 'When you came here, I thought it was going to be extremely interesting and kind of fascinating, but it's like, you know, listening to an accountant or something,'" he says.
In fact, Allen claims, the bad old days weren't that bad.
"I've never had a puff of marijuana," he tells contributing editor Peter Biskind. "I've never had cocaine. I've never had speed. I've never had heroin. I've never had a sleeping pill."
What he's had, Allen claims, is a life-long "low-level depression."
As for age bringing wisdom, Allen calls that "crap."
"I've gained no wisdom, no insight, no mellowing," he says. "I would make all the same mistakes again, today."