‘Crisis in Six Scenes’ Star, John Magaro, Talks Character And Working With Woody Allen & Miley Cyrus

Alan is a young man who comes from a very conservative family. He’s getting his MBA in business at Columbia in the 60s and staying with a friend of their family, which is Woody and Elaine. Their world — all of our worlds — are shaken up when Miley Cyrus’ character Lennie arrives and challenges our very traditional beliefs.

It was a dream come true. I mean, Woody has been an idol of mine for a long time, I’ve admired his work for years, it’s one of the reasons that I went into this profession. So, having the chance to work with him, I wasn’t gonna turn away from. Your nerves get going when you first step on that set, but as soon as we started playing the scenes he puts you at ease, he really trusts his actors, he moves quickly and makes the set a good environment. Yeah, it was amazing, really amazing.

He really trusts the people he hires, and what was the strangest thing. I was in this situation, very lucky that he’s also acting in it as well, and that hasn’t happened recently. In his most recent work he’s directing and writing, he’s not acting in it, but one of my first scenes was with him and stepping into that room and seeing Woody do what he does so well was surreal. I mean it was surreal. I rarely have to do this, but I had to pinch myself and just do what I had to do and rise to the occasion. But, his notes are very gentile and if he ever gives you one it’s very self-deprecating. He tends to blame himself if there’s a problem. He says, ‘You can take the note, but you don’t have to take the note.’ It’s really comfortable and really a lot of fun.

This is in the 60s and there’s a lot of turmoil and she is a young revolutionary who is on the run, and my character Alan becomes quickly enamored by her and her ideas, and the rest you’ll have to watch to figure out. But, she is fantastic, she’s such a hard worker. I think she had retired from acting; the youngest person ever to retire from acting. She said the only person who could bring her back was Woody and he did it. I believe he wrote the character for her and she just showed up everyday, worked so hard, gave it everything she could, and was a pleasure to be around. Such a sweet person, and such a talent, in many capacities – so talented in music, acting and you could go on. I had such a good time with her, and I think she had a good time on the set as well.