Drinking it in: Match Point's Emily Mortimer and Matthew Goode (Photo: STV)

In case you thought Woody Allen's upcoming Match Point would lurk comfortably this week in King Kong's and Brokeback Mountain's hyperbolic shadows, the director and his cast hit the tabloids today with just about everything they have. I mean, it would probably be enough that Match Point had Roger Friedman's dick busting his zipper, but a little Liz Smith-Cindy Adams tag-team hagiography goes an extra long way. Lloyd Grove has some Woody action as well, plus an insight on how Scarlett Johansson's father handles viewing her love scenes.

Meanwhile, The Reeler ran into co-stars Emily Mortimer and Matthew Goode at last night's Visit Britain preview screening of Match Point at the Tribeca Grand. Mortimer recalled running into director Alfonso Cuaron in London the day before she was to start shooting with Allen. "(Cuaron) said, 'Oh, that's brilliant.' He really admired him. And then he said, 'Don't ask him any questions.' And I was like, 'Oh, fucking hell.' It was terrifying. And in some ways, he was right. No one got fired, and it wasn't that sort of horrible atmosphere where people were living in fear of that happening, but what you've heard from the other movies--there's not very much rehearsal, there's not very much dialogue about the job in hand, that sort of thing--that's entirely true. And so that meets your expectations. It's quite the adjustment at first, but once you get into it, it's really exciting working like that. We all really enjoyed it. The thing that was surprising--despite that being true--he was generally completely un-neurotic. The least neurotic director I've ever worked with. Very happy, very twinkly, very jokey, always in a good mood. Completely relaxed and affable."

Goode agreed. "He's very approachable if you have any queries," he said. "I always thought, 'I won't bother him. I'll let him do his thing.' He's only a little fellow, but there's some sort of deep power that comes out of those big glasses. So he still scares me a bit, even though he's totally lovely. I always feel I shouldn't take up too much of his time. You really start trying to trust your instincts a bit more, and working with him actually gave me more confidence."

"At the beginning," Mortimer said, "I was thinking, 'I don't know how I can be doing well. I don't know how this can result in good acting.' Whatever you think of the guy--most people think he's a genius, some people have other opinions--he's always gotten really good performances out of hs actors, I think. And it is from trusting them. He has great respect for them. He only gets in the way if he starts to direct them. He starts interfering with what they're doing and making it less good than it would have been."

"I think that all that goes to the same sort of thing," Goode added. "There's this sort of uncomfortable nervousness about it. That's the reason he's continued getting good performances. Because it's a general fear."

"You don't have anything to sort of hold back on," Mortimer said. "You just have to listen and be in the scene, otherwise you're completely fucked."

"Oh," Goode said, nodding vigorously. "You're fucked. Yeah."

Well, they seem to have survived, and their characters' aloof brand of class conflict help make Match Point the chilly, splendid little film it is. But now that they have had their fun with Allen, they need to face reality and give him back to New York; they must know, after all, we press parasites cannot survive on Harvey Weinstein alone.