For such a prolific filmmaker, Woody Allen considers himself to be essentially lazy.

In Toronto yesterday to promote his 38th feature film, Cassandra's Dream, Allen said he is not a "perfectionist" when it comes to making films and that his work takes a back seat to family, friends and even watching sports.

"I'm not a dedicated filmmaker, I'm lazy. To me, making a film is not the be-all end-all of my life. I want to shoot the film and go home and get on with my life," Allen said.

"I said to myself after the first film, this is ridiculous, I don't want to work to get a shot and miss the basketball game. I don't want to have to work late, I don't want to have to kill myself on the weekend, I don't want to have to sit through rehearsals endlessly or shoot the extra 10 takes to get the perfect moment," Allen said.

"I just decided that my life is more important ... my family, my children, my clarinet-playing, the basketball games, the baseball games. All the shallow stuff of life ... is more important to me than making a perfect film," he added.

In fact, Allen said, his original decision to go from stand-up comedy to writing and directing films was not to emulate the directors he admires, including Ingmar Bergman, Vittorio De Sica and Federico Fellini.

"I only went into films for the most shallow reasons, to meet women and so I wouldn't have to have a really arduous life of drudgery. I went into (filmmaking) not with the highest aspirations but with really base motives," he said.

Actors Colin Farrell and Ewan McGregor, who star in the film as ill-fated brothers, applauded Allen's style, which involved almost no rehearsal and usually just two or three takes.

"It's very hard afterwards to make films with other people because it ruins you. It's a very efficient way of filmmaking," McGregor said.

"Woody is one of those who seems like he has absolutely no technique, which is beautiful," Farrell said.

Farrell noted he did as many takes in Allen's latest film as he did in one scene of the film version of Miami Vice.

"The only Woody Allen film I've seen is Antz and I thought he was great in that," Farrell joked, referring to the animated film in which Allen voices the lead character.

Cassandra's Dream is the third time Allen filmed in the United Kingdom and his next film, already in the works, is set in Barcelona, Spain.

Allen said he'll continue to work in Europe because he can get financing for his films there without giving up artistic control.

"It's the strangest thing, I've found that I can get more copacetic financing in Europe. They don't want to read my script, they don't care who's in it. I'm a foreign filmmaker all of a sudden and it fulfills my adulthood fantasy," Allen said, noting he has standing offers to work in France and Italy.

As his star waned and box office numbers dwindled, U.S. studios began to demand more control over casting and other major decisions.

"I've been spoiled by decades of not working that way and I don't think I could work that way. And I said I would rather not do it. I found it hard to get financing because (the studios) wanted some input. I said, `Once you open that door, the input would never stop.'"

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Allen criticized the U.S studio system, which funds big-budget films expecting huge profit.

"The average movie is about $40 million and they're these stupid comedies that are just these dumb, teenage toilet-joke movies that (cost) $50 million, $100 million, $150 million," Allen said.

"And I have to sweat all the time to get $15 million to make a movie. Obviously, I'm not going to bankrupt anybody. I'm not going to lose the whole $15 million, I might lose $12 million of it."