Woody Allen “has learned little” with age as he nears his 70th birthday.

Allen, who turns 70 on December 1, set tongues wagging in 1992 when he split from Farrow and went public about his relationship with Soon-Yi, Farrow's adopted daughter who was then 22. Allen and Previn were married in 1997 and now have two daughters, aged five and six. The director also said he would never make a film as good as Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal. "I feel that level of greatness is not in me," he said.

In the rare interview, Allen speaks candidly about the 1992 scandal that shattered his relationship with actress Mia Farrow and led to his 1997 marriage to Soon-Yi Previn.

Farrow discovered Allen's affair with her adopted daughter when she found naked photos of Previn in the director's apartment, BBC News reports.

The film-maker, speaking of his relationship with Previn, said it was "one of the fortuitous events, one of the great pieces of luck in my life".

The two-time Oscar-winning director adds that he has no professional grudge against Farrow, despite her accusing him of molesting another of the children they adopted together. On the professional front, he says he gives himself a "B" for his body of work, and admits that he does not feel he is a "great" director, comparing himself negatively with legends such as Federico Fellini and Akira Kurosawa, Gurdian Unlimited reports. A.M.