Woody Allen on relationship with Mia Farrow's adopted daughter Soon-Yi

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Woody Allen went into rare details about his relationship with Soon-Yi
They got together while he was dating her adopted mother Mia Farrow
Now married, Soon-Yi, 44, and Allen, 79, have been together for 23 years
Allen says it works because he is 'paternal' which helped her 'flourish'
He also reveals he thought it would just be a 'fling' when it started

Published: 00:52 EST, 30 July 2015 | Updated: 04:13 EST, 30 July 2015

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Woody Allen has revealed he thought his controversial relationship with wife Soon-Yi Previn was 'just a fling' when it started in 1992.

The prolific director, now 79, has been in a relationship with Mia Farrow's adopted daughter, 44, for 23 years.

Breaking his intense privacy in a rare interview with NPR's film critic Sam Fragoso, Allen describes in detail why 'the dynamic worked' between them, insisting the age difference 'didn't seem to matter' - 'It seemed to work in our favor actually.'

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'She responded to someone paternal': Woody Allen analyses his marriage to Soon-Yi (pictured in July 2015)

Controversial: They are pictured here in 1997, five years after he left Soon-Yi's mother Mia Farrow for her

He said: 'I started the relationship with her and I thought it would just be a fling. It wouldn't be serious, but it had a life of its own. And I never thought it would be anything more. Then we started going together, then we started living together, and we were enjoying it.'

'She enjoyed being introduced to many, many things that I knew from experience, and I enjoyed showing her those things,' he continued.

Reflecting on why they have stayed together so long, Allen said: 'I'm 35 years older, and somehow, through no fault of mine or hers, the dynamic worked.

'I was paternal. She responded to someone paternal.

'I liked her youth and energy. She deferred to me, and I was happy to give her an enormous amount of decision making just as a gift and let her take charge of so many things. She flourished.

'It was just a good luck thing.'

His words appear to contradict Previn's analysis of their relationship in an interview with Time, when she appeared to imply she had always seen Allen in a romantic way.

'To think that Woody was in any way a father or stepfather to me is laughable,' she said.

Woody Allen with wife Soon-Yi in New York last year

Allen was stepfather to Farrow's children (here in 1986) until 1992, when he and Soon-Yi (right) got together

Their relationship - which started while he was dating Farrow - has remained a constant fascination in the media since it became public in 1992.

It came just over a decade after Allen made the movie Manhattan, in which his character dates a college-age girl and puts it off as a fling until he realizes he loves her.

Friends of the family told Vanity Fair's Maureen Orth at the time they 'sensed that Soon-Yi had a crush on Woody' in 1991 'which he seemed to delight in'.

'They thought nothing of it, since Soon-Yi had yet to receive her first phone call from a boy,' Orth wrote. 'Woody started taking her to basketball games, and Mia would reportedly tell her to stop dressing up for them as if she were going to a disco.'

It unraveled when Farrow found naked pictures of Soon-Yi in Allen's apartment.

Since, the makeshift family has been engaged in a dramatic ping pong game of allegations.

Mia Farrow on custody battle with Woody Allen in 1992

'Not related': Allen insists his private controversies bear no relation to his art. In the movie Manhattan (1979), his character dates a college-age girl, putting it off as a fling until he realizes he loves her (pictured)

Dylan Farrow, who was adopted by both Farrow and Allen although they never married, maintains Allen sexually abused her as a child.

Allen wrote an op-ed in the New York Times last year defending himself, claiming Mia Farrow brainwashed Dylan into believing she was molested.

'Not that I doubt Dylan hasn't come to believe she's been molested, but if from the age of seven a vulnerable child is taught by a strong mother to hate her father because he is a monster who abused her, is it so inconceivable that after many years of this indoctrination the image of me Mia wanted to establish had taken root?' he wrote.

Speaking to NPR's Fragoso this week, he addressed the persistent allegations, saying he refuses to believe they affect his reputation.

'It has no meaning in the way I make movies,' he insists.