Speaker 1: A Paul Thomas Anderson film is an event. He wrote and directed Boogie Knights, Magnolia, The Master, There Will Be Blood and Phantom Thread. His new film is already on Critic's best of the year list. It's called Licorice Pizza. It's a return to where Paul Thomas Anderson grew up and still lives, the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles.

Paul Thomas Anderson: Do you know who I am?

Speaker 3: Yes.

Paul Thomas Anderson: Do you know who my girlfriend is?

Speaker 3: Streisand?

Paul Thomas Anderson: Barbara Streisand.

Speaker 3: Sand?

Paul Thomas Anderson: Sand, like sands, like the ocean.

Speaker 3: Barbara Streisand?

Paul Thomas Anderson: No, Streisand.

Speaker 3: Sand.

Speaker 1: Licorice Pizza is a joyful disconnected romp about growing up in friendship. It follows the misadventures of two young people in the 1970s trying somehow to make it big and create themselves. They're played by Cooper Hoffman and Alana Haim, both in their first film roles and each in their own way stunning. I reached Paul Thomas Anderson at his home in the Valley. I have to ask you about where you are now, where I think we're talking to you, which is in San Fernando Valley. Faulkner had his patch of Mississippi and Tony Morrison and her patch of Ohio and Philip Roth and Newark and so on. You've got this part of the world and you're drawn to it in a number of movies. Boogie Knights, Magnolia, and now Licorice Pizza. Why do you go home again all the time in your films? What draws you to the Valley?

Paul Thomas Anderson: God. I love it. I love it. It's as simple as that. It begins and ends there. The valley is not the prettiest place in the world. It is not the most cultured place in the world. I understand that, but I can remember being a kid and thinking at a certain point, probably in my teenage years, "I've got to get out of here." Out of here either being either over the hill or maybe that's New York, maybe that's London, maybe it's Shanghai, whatever it is, I have to get out of here. I'm one of those people that loves to get away for 24 hours, and then I start getting itchy and thinking about back home, I just want to come back home.

Speaker 1: I get the east coast version, which is like, I grew up in what I thought was the dullest place in the world, which was a middle class suburban New Jersey, and always looking to New York City. I would listen to late night radio or television. Everybody from California would make jokes about the Valley. They were obviously-- I didn't know what that was. What was the joke? What is the Valley in a spiritual sense and in terms of the landscape of your youth and you've never left really?

Paul Thomas Anderson: The San Fernando Valley, what is it? It's a suburb. I guess a suburb seemed to always come in for a beating. I'm not quite sure why. I guess my gravity was that when I was first writing Boogie Knights, when I was a teenager, there was a terrific story in my own backyard. I didn't have to go far, I didn't have to make things up. It was just familiar to me. I guess at some point I probably read, "Write what you know." I was like, "That's a good place to start. Why am I struggling to try to learn something that's beyond my grasp or doesn't speak to me?

Speaker 1: Licorice Pizza is centered on two characters, one a teenage guy who's incredibly charismatic for his age. He's a smalltime actor, he starts a waterbed business and then a pinball palace, and his bravado is amazing for somebody 15 years old. He falls for a girl much older than him, certainly at that age, it's feels incredibly older, she was in her mid 20s and who herself has a thwarted life, but an inner intelligence that's also magnetic. How is that rooted in your experience? If you're writing what you know, what's the germ of the story of Licorice Pizza for you?

Paul Thomas Anderson: I was the second of four. I had an old sister and a buddy of mine had an older sister, and we just happened to fall in the cracks that when we were 14, 15 these were girls that were around us. Our sister's friends who were 18, 19, they had cars. Every waking hour was devoted to try to get them to drive us somewhere, to hang out.

Speaker 1: That's the key.

Paul Thomas Anderson: That's the key. Certainly, probably behind it was trying to flirt with them or get noticed by them in some way that was more than just an irritating little brother. I can remember having a couple friendships with some of those girls that I met along the way. They were just friendships, but they were fantastic. to have a friendship with a just slightly older woman that wasn't your sister. I had a toe into the version of the adult world or what started to feel adult just because of the transportation that they had. They're still only 20 years old but, like you said, the measuring stick is so insane when you're young. Somebody who's 20 is a full grown adult to a 15 year old.

Speaker 1: There are, I think, many ways to make a film. You read about filmmakers who everything is, Hitchcock this way, or was said to be this way, that everything was mapped out, storyboarded, every shot was prepared. The meticulousness of the film was structured and almost pre-edited. Then you have Jean-Luc Godard, he's writing the script for the day that morning and there's a haphazard, seemingly haphazard, way of going about it. Your films always have a voice, I'm always rushing to see them because I know I'm hearing from you in the most personal way. How much of that comes out of the writing? Is that the most crucial element of the creative process for you? Maybe take us through how that happened with Licorice Pizza.

Paul Thomas Anderson: The writing. It all begins and ends with the writing. That's an over-exaggeration, but the point of that is to say that if the writing is good you've got a very good shot at making a good film, or you've got a good shot of making your day. You've got some clarity that you're walking into the situation with. The reason you know is because when you write a scene that doesn't work, you generally spend way too much time trying to do it, you spend too much time reshooting it, rewriting it, trying it of 100 different ways, and then you realize this scene doesn't belong in the film. It's like, after this many years, you'd think you'd be able to spot it quicker.

Actually on this time a couple times we did, I had some scenes that I wrote that just were not working. I would say to Alana and Cooper, I say, "What if you didn't say any of this dumb dialogue that I wrote and you just walked or silently looked at each other?" It was great and we'd have this magical thing, and it was a classic example of too much with the dialogue, enough with the writing. Get out of it, stay out of it.

Speaker 1: You mentioned Cooper, who is Cooper Hoffman, who's the son of the late Philip Seymour Hoffman. Alana is Alana Haim, who's been known until now in a terrific band with her sisters. There's a certain audacity in picking to as lead actors in a major film. Why'd you choose them?

Paul Thomas Anderson: I knew Alana had certainly the talent and the confidence just from her years as a performer. I knew Cooper had the heart and the soulfulness, but that was unclear whether he could really, you could never know, you never know if someone's going to have that talent in front of your eyes, and then you turn on a movie camera and they become like Pee-wee Herman in Pee-wee's big adventure when he is staring into the camera or mouthing the other person's line. It's always possible, believe me. The more that we read the script together and hung out together and really investigated this as a real possibility, it was like, I'm looking for two authentic, genuine people who can't hide their emotions, and here they are right in front of me.

Speaker 4: Where are your parents?

Speaker 5: My mom works for me.

Speaker 4: Of course she does. That makes sense.

Speaker 5: She does, in my public relations company.

Speaker 4: In your public relations company, because you have that.

Speaker 5: Yes.

Speaker 4: You're an actor?

Speaker 5: Yes.

Speaker 4: You're a secret agent too?

Speaker 5: No, I'm not a secret agent. That's funny.

Speaker 4: Are you joking?

Speaker 5: No, I'm not.

Speaker 4: That's a lot.

Speaker 5: Gets complicated.

Speaker 4: I'm sure. All that math homework you have to do after everything.

Speaker 1: They were the choices from the start. There were no auditions, there were no mental sorting?

Paul Thomas Anderson: There was no auditions for Alana's part. That was what I was doing, and that was what I had set my mind on when it came to cast.

Speaker 1: You had made a music video with her, I thought.

Paul Thomas Anderson: Yes, many. I've worked with her sisters for a number of years now. I have a collaboration that extends beyond the music videos. I love them as a family, I love their music. We're very intertwined that way. I mentioned Cooper's name to Alana, Danielle, Este, the three sister. They talk all the time these Haim sisters, all the time. They're always talking all over each other. When you say something that lands, they all stop talking. They looked at me and they said, "I think maybe that's a good idea." I've got their attention. They had been introduced to him, I guess five or six years ago now he came to town and I was looking after him and I had to go off and take care of something. "Babysit him, hang out with him for a minute," and they did. They were taken by him, as everybody is that meets him. Incredibly personable, charming, empathetic, unique person.

Speaker 1: Obviously you worked with the late Philip Seymour Hoffman, Cooper's father. I hesitate to ask this question because it might be somehow off or vulgar, but did they resemble each other in any way, both as people and as artists, as actors?

Paul Thomas Anderson: There's a physical resemblance. Sure. What I think is nice is that Cooper is really his own person. He's got his mom's eyes and his mom's smile from time to time, he turns his head and he looks a lot like his dad, but working with Phil's like working with Daniel Joaquin. They had been doing it for so long. They had figured out the business of acting in movies.

Speaker 1: The last four movies prior to this, you worked with Daniel Day Lewis twice in Joaquin Phoenix twice, two astonishing, experienced actors. They know what they're doing to say the least. Your stars here are both superb, but they're relative rookies. How does that change the way you work with them? What's the process there?

Paul Thomas Anderson: Well, it's different for sure. It's different. Somebody that's been doing it a long time knows how to pace themselves physically, emotionally, over the course of 65 days. It would've been very natural and I could see the amount of nerves and concentration and energy that they were putting into this, that they could have burned out quite easily. I had to take them through each step of the process and give them enough time to prepare. You get to the basic things, especially with Cooper, he's 16, 17-years-old. Have you eaten breakfast? Have you had a snack? Are you tired? You really do have to take care of them in that way, were you working with an adult who's done it for 40 years.

It was much more in the pragmatic pieces of what it means to go to work each day over a period of time and the emotional parts and the words. The characters that they were playing, it was clear to them. It was one of the most beautiful things to watch, the difference between day one and day three. The difference between day three and day five.

Speaker 1: I have to tell you, I can't imagine an Oscar ceremony this coming year without seeing Alana Haim as a central figure in it. Her performance is a knockout. Again, she's doing it the first time out of the box. Yes, she's a performer, a musician she's been on stage a million times, but how does this happen?

Paul Thomas Anderson: I think the answer is that some people have a gift. Daniel Day Lewis has a gift. Joaquin Phoenix has a gift. Phil had a gift. Some people can make words explode out of their mouth on a movie screen that appear that they have just been formulated in their mind and their heart. They can do it all the while, while they're walking, talking. It's weird. I was very concerned because there's a long history of probably film directors who thought they were seeing some brilliant performance in front of their eyes when in fact they were blinded by some light or something. I would constantly check in with guys that I was working with around the camera. "Are you seeing what I'm seeing? Because this seems like--" I knew she'd be good, but she's so unpredictable and she's so scary, but you can wrap your arms around her. She's like all these things at once. I don't know what it is. She's got it.

Speaker 1: Some of my favorite bits in the movie are when Hollywood intrudes. Barbara Streisand's boyfriend at the time is John Peterson. He's an insanely weird character. Then there's this Sean Penn moment who is a Hollywood blow hard. He has a fantastic, I don't know, five, 10 minutes in the film. It leads me to ask you how was Hollywood treating a creature like you these days? In other words, you're not making Marvel films, you're not making Fast and Furious franchise films. On the other hand, you're not making tiny indie films either. You're making films for adults on a midsize budget. How are you looking at the landscape of the business this these days?

Paul Thomas Anderson: Boy, it warms my heart to be able to tell you that I feel happier than ever working in this business. I've got my own little corner of the sandbox. I'm working with people that I really admire and like at MGM. That's me, and this is what I've been doing for a minute. I know there's no end to the sky is falling questions that always surround films and what's going to happen. Obviously it's gotten even more complicated and it's more tangible with dialogue about streaming and overabundance of super hero movies and stuff. It seems to be something that's popular these days to wonder, have they ruined movies and all this stuff. I just don't feel that way.

Look, we're all nervous about people getting back to the theater, but you know what's going to get them back in the movie theater? Spiderman. Let's be happy about that.

Speaker 1: That's an okay thing?

Paul Thomas Anderson: Absolutely. It's an okay thing.

Speaker 1: The director, Paul Thomas Anderson. Licorice Pizza is in theaters now. You'll be glad to know, or I don't know if you'll be, I hope you'll be glad to know that Richard Brody's top movies of the year just came out and you and The French Dispatch were the top two. That's good company.

Paul Thomas Anderson: I've just read Richard's a review of our film and I was still processing it all. I've had good reviews in my day, but this one might take the cake.

Speaker 1: That's great to hear.

Paul Thomas Anderson: Had an old cold black heart like mine warmed up a little bit. It's pretty great.

[music]

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