A 2012 interview with the actor and film director Woody Allen states that "Allen has been confronting the horror of mortality … since he was five."

Allen said,

There's no advantage to aging. You don't get wiser, you don't get more mellow, you don't see life in a more glowing way. You have to fight your body decaying, and you have less options.

The only thing you can do is what you did when you were 20—because you're always walking with an abyss right under your feet … which is to distract yourself. Getting involved in a movie [occupies] all my anxiety … If I wasn't concentrated on [distractions], I'd be thinking of larger issues. And those aren't resolvable, and you're checkmated whichever way you go.