Woody Allen’s Most Memorable Muses—From Diane Keaton to Blake Lively

This morning it was announced that the Cannes Film Festival’s opening night will kick off with Woody Allen’s Café Society, starring Kristen Stewart and Blake Lively—two actresses who reign on opposite ends of both the acting and beauty spectrums. Lively’s sunny optimism and highlights are an obvious choice for Allen, representing the buxom blondes that are the crux of the director’s plot twists. Will she play a naive and curvaceous Scarlett Johansson type, or might she be cast as an intriguingly cold Cate Blanchett–esque lead?

Then, of course, there’s Kristen Stewart, who has the potential to become a very different kind of Allen muse, following in the footsteps of the sharp-tongued, smoky-eyed Penélope Cruz; the unhinged and wonderfully disheveled Radha Mitchell; or the beguiling androgyne Diane Keaton. No matter their roles, Lively and Stewart’s knife-pleat cheekbones, pale eyes, and slept-in waves have the ability to render his cast of hyperintellectual leading men speechless. Because history has shown that, for Allen, a steadied gaze from the right set of piercing eyes (see Charlotte Rampling and Carla Bruni) has the ability to make a person feel, in the words of Stardust Memories character Sandy Bates, “indestructible.” And a wide, easy smile from the likes of Emma Stone or Julia Roberts can have even his darkest protagonists walking on air. Above, while we wait for Café Society’s May premiere, a look back at 16 muses who have defined Allen’s work.

 

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