Woody Allen, Twiggy 1967 Philosopher Interview Explained
Twiggy, who would have been just 17 years old at the time, is being lauded for how she handled the potentially awkward situation, with then-31-year-old Woody seemingly belittling her intelligence during the uncomfortable conversation.
Woody kicked off the 1967 interview by asking Twiggy her thoughts on 'serious matters,' and when she asks what he means by that, he replies: 'I don't know, who's your favorite philosopher?'
Twiggy can't hide her shock at the question, and she laughs awkwardly before answering: 'I haven't got one, I have no idea.' She then curiously asks: 'Who's yours?'
'Oh, I like them all,' Woody stutters in response, but Twiggy refuses to let him get away that easily.
'Who?' she asks again, and Woody sheepishly replies: 'All your basic philosophers.''Who?' Twiggy repeats, Woody once again stumbles over his words as he says: 'Just all of them.'
'I don't know their names though,' Twiggy confesses, with a serious look on her face. 'What are their names?'
Twiggy previously revealed that this interview took place during her first-ever trip to New York, and that she wanted to run off and 'burst into tears' when Woody first asked the question.
"There was one person who wasn't so nice — a young comic called Woody Allen, and he was to interview me for a documentary," she told Glamour in 2009. "His first question was: 'Who's your favorite philosopher?' My heart sank. I wanted to run off and burst into tears. I didn't know any philosophers. And he probably knew I didn't.''When I said so, he replied: 'Oh, come on, everyone has a favorite philosopher.' It was such a cruel thing to do to a young girl," she continued.Twiggy also revealed that Woody left the set and refused to continue with the interview after she turned the tables on him.
"I was desperate and trying not to cry, but I turned the tables on him and asked him to come up with some names — but he couldn't think of any either!' Twiggy recalled. 'Then he said to me: 'I suppose you've read Dickens,' thinking I hadn't. So I said: 'Yeah, I read him at school.' In the end, he said: 'Oh, I can't interview her,' and left the stage."
And in a 2025 interview with the Guardian, Twiggy said: 'He was trying to make me look stupid. My heart sank. I remember looking at him, pleading with my eyes for him to stop.'
'If I was the age he was there, in my 30s, I would never have behaved like that towards someone who was only 17,' she added.
The interview clip resurfaced on X on Sunday and quickly went viral, racking up over four million views and thousands of likes and retweets as other users praised Twiggy's reaction.
One quote-tweet that has been liked more than 92,000 times reads: 'She was 17, a perfectly acceptable age to not know any philosophers but a very impressive age to embarrass a 31 year old with his own bullshit.''I love how the look in her eye goes from bashful to, 'oh, I'm going for the kill now. Game on,'' somebody else noted.'The funniest part about this is you'd think the obvious thing to do if you plan to ask a question to humiliate someone is to know the answer yourself, but the thought never even crossed his mind,' another wrote. And one more concluded: ''What are your thoughts on serious matters?' is the most fake intellectual question of all time like… which one???'
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