The New Yorker Radio Hour - Paul Thomas Anderson, Poet Laureate of the San Fernando Valley

Episode Date: December 10, 2021

Paul Thomas Anderson first made a splash in Hollywood with his film “Boogie Nights,” a portrait of the porn industry that burgeoned in the San Fernando Valley, the much-mocked suburbs of Los Angeles. Anderson is a Valley native, and proud to live there still. “There was a terrific story right in my own back yard,” he told David Remnick. “I guess at some point, I probably read ‘Write what you know.’ I was, like, Well, that’s a good place to start.” Many of Anderson’s films—such as “Magnolia,” “There Will Be Blood,” and “Inherent Vice”—tell stories from Southern California’s past and present. Anderson’s new film, “Licorice Pizza,” returns to that terrain. It portrays the thorny relationship between a teen-aged boy and a twenty-five-year-old woman, and the pair’s misadventures in the Valley of the mid-seventies. Anderson, who could recruit any stars in Hollywood, instead cast two newcomers as his leads: Alana Haim (a musician in the indie band HAIM) and Cooper Hoffman. Anderson spoke to David Remnick from his home in—where else?—the Valley. New Yorker Radio Hour listeners, we want to hear from you.  We have a few questions about the show and how you listen to it. The survey takes about twenty minutes, and your feedback will help us make our podcast better.  Take the survey here.

This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. Welcome to The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. A Paul Thomas Anderson film is an event. He wrote and directed Boogie Nights, Magnolia, The Master, There Will Be Blood, and Phantom Thread. And his new film is already on critics' best of the year list. It's called Lickrish Pizza. It's a return to where Paul Thomas Anderson grew up and still lives. the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles.

Do you know who I am? Yeah. Do you know who my girlfriend is? Barberschizedand? Sand. Sand. Yeah, like sands. Like the ocean.

Like beach. Barbar sysand? No. Stry sand. Sand. Lickarish pizza is a joyful, disconnected romp about growing up and friendship. It follows the misadventures of two young people in the 1970s, trying somehow to make it big and create it.

themselves. They're played by Cooper Hoffman and Alanaheim, both in their first film roles and each in their own way, stunning. I reach 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 the Valley. Faulkner had his patch of Mississippi and Tony Morrison and her patch of Ohio and Philip Roth and Newark and so on, and you've got this part of the world and you're drawn to it in a number of movies, Boogie Nights, Magnolia, now Lickrish Pizza. Why do you go home again all the time in your films? What draws you to the Valley?

God, it's, I love it. I love it. It's as simple as that. It sort of begins and ends there. I mean, the Valley is not the prettiest place in the world. It is not the most cultured place in the world. I understand that, but, you know, I can remember being a kid and thinking, at a certain point, probably in my teenage years, you know, I've got to get out of here.

And 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. And I'm one of those people that, you know, 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. Well, 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 kind of middle-class suburban New Jersey, and always looking to New York City. Yeah.

And I would listen to late-night radio or television. Everybody from California would make jokes about the valley. They were obviously in, you know, 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 what you are, and you've never left, really? I mean, the San Fernando Valley, what is it? It's a suburb, and I guess a suburb seemed to always come in for a beating. I'm not quite sure why.

You know, and I guess my gravity was that when I was first writing Boogie Nights, when I was a teenager, there was a terrific story in my own backyard. I mean, I didn't have to go far. I didn't have to make things up. It was just familiar to me. I was taught. I guess at some point I probably read, you know, write what you know. I was like, well, that's a good place to start. So why am I struggling to try to learn something that's beyond my grasp or doesn't speak? to me. Well, Lickory Pizza is centered on two characters. One, a teenage guy who's incredibly charismatic for his age. He's a small-time actor. He starts a waterbed business and then a pinball palace and his kind of bravado is amazing for somebody 15 years old. And he falls for a

girl much older than him. Certainly at that age, it feels incredibly older. It 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? I was the second of four, so I had an older sister, and a buddy of mine had an older sister, and we just sort of happened to fall in the cracks that when we were 1415, these were girls that were around us, our sister's friends, who were 18, 19, they had cars. So every waking hour was devoted to try to get them to drive us somewhere, you know, to hang out.

That's the key. You know, that's the key. And 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. And they were just friendships, but they were. They're fantastic, you know, to have a friendship with just slightly older woman that wasn't your sister. And I had a toe into the version of the adult world or what started to feel adult because they're just because of the transportation that they had. I mean, they're still only 20 years old.

But, you know, like you said, the sort of the measuring stick is so insane when you're young. you know, somebody who's 20 is like a full, full grown adult to a 15-year-old. I'm talking with Paul Thomas Anderson about licorice pizza and much more. We'll be back in a moment. There are, I think, many ways to make a film. You know, you read about filmmakers who everything is Hitchcock is 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.

And then you have Jean-Luc Goddard, who's making it, he's writing the script for the day that morning, and there's a kind of 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? And maybe take us through how that happened with licorice pizza. The writing, it all begins and ends with the writing. I mean, 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.

And 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 a hundred different ways, and then you realize, like, 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. And actually on this time, a couple of times we did.

I had some scenes that I wrote that just were not working. And I would say to Alana and Cooper, I say, well, what if you didn't say any of this dumb dialogue that I wrote and you just walked or silently looked at each other? And it was great. and we'd have this magical thing. And it was a classic example of, like, too much with the dialogue, enough with the writing, you know.

Get out of it. Stay out of it. You mentioned Cooper, who's Cooper Hoffman, who's the son of the late Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Alana is Alana Heim, who has been known until now in a terrific band with her sisters. There's a certain audacity in picking those two as lead actors in a major film.

Why'd you choose them? you know, I knew Alana had certainly the talent and the confidence just from her years as a performer. And I knew Cooper had the heart and the soulfulness. But that was unclear whether he could really, you know, you could never know. You never know if someone's going to have that kind of talent in front of your eyes. And then you turn on a movie camera and they'd become like, you know, Pee-Wee Herman and Peewee's big adventure when he's like staring into the camera or mouthing the other person's line.

I mean, it's always possible. Believe me. But 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. Where are your parents? My mom worked for me.

Oh, of course she does. Yes, she does. And my public relations company. And your public relations company? Because you have that. Yes. And you're an actor. Yes.

And you're a secret agent, too. Well, no, I'm not a secret agent. That's funny. Are you joking? No, I'm not. That's a lot. It gets complicated. I'm sure.

And all that math homework you have to do after everything. So they were the choices from the start. There were no auditions. There were no mental sorting. 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... You had made a music video with her, I think.

Yeah, many, many. I mean, 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, and so we're very intertwined that way. And I mentioned Cooper's name to Alana, Danielle Esty, the three sisters. And they were... They talk all the time, these hym sisters, all the time.

They're always talking all over. each other. When you say something that lands, they all stopped talking and they kind of looked at me. And I said, I think maybe that's a good idea. I've gotten them, I've got their attention. They had been introduced to him, I guess, about 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. So I said babysit him, hang out with him for a minute. And they did. And they were taken by him, as everybody is that meets him, incredibly personal, charming, empathetic, unique person. Obviously, you've worked with the late Philip Seymour Hoffman, Cooper's father.

I guess 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? No, I mean, there's a physical resemblance, sure, but what I think is nice is that Cooper which 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, you know, it would be, it's sort of, you know, working with Phil's like working with Daniel or Joaquin. They had been doing it for so long.

They had figured out the business of acting in movies. You know, the last four movies, prior to this, you worked with Daniel Day-Lewis twice and 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?

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, you know, over the course of 65 days. It would have 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. You know, I had to take them through each step of the process and give them enough time to prepare. And, you know, you get to the basic things like, especially with Cooper, he's 16, 17 years old. Have you eaten breakfast?

Have you had a snack? You know, are you tired? You really do have to take care of them in that way. Where are you working with an adult who's done it for 40 years? But 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 and the characters that they were playing, it was clear to them. And it was one of the most beautiful things to watch, sort of the difference between day one and day three. The difference between day three and day five, you know.

I have to tell you. I can't imagine an Oscars ceremony this coming year without seeing Alana Heim as a central figure in it. Her performance is a knockout. And 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?

I think the answer is that some people have a gift. gift. Daniel DeLewis has a gift. Waukeen Phoenix has a gift. Phil had a gift. And 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. And they can do it all the while while they're walking, talking. And it's like weird. And 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 like blinded by some light or something and I would constantly check in with guys that I was working with around the camera like are you seeing what I'm seeing because this seems like I knew

she'd be good but she's just like she's so unpredictable and she's so scary but you can wrap your arms around her you know she's like all of these things at once I don't know what it is. Like, she's got it. Some of my favorite bits in the movie are when Hollywood intrudes. Barbara Streisand's boyfriend at the time is John Peters, and he's an insanely weird character. And then there's this Sean Penn moment who is a kind of Hollywood blowhard. And he has a fantastic, I don't know, five, ten minutes in the film.

But it leads me to ask you, how is Hollywood treating a creature like you these days? You know, in the 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 mid-sized budget. How are you looking at the landscape of the business these days? 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. But that's me, you know. And I'm, this is what I've been doing for a minute. And I know there's, there's no end to the kind of sky is falling questions that always surround films and what's going to happen. And obviously, it's gotten even more complicated and it's more tangible with dialogue about streaming and the sort of overabundance

of superhero movies and stuff. And, you know, it seems to be something that's popular these days to sort of wonder, have they ruined movies and all this kind of stuff. I just don't feel that way. I mean, 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? Spider-Man, so let's be happy about that.

So that's an okay thing. Absolutely, it's an okay thing. The director, Paul Thomas Anderson. Lickish Pizza is in theaters now. You'll be glad to know, or I don't know if you'll, 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, so that's good company.

You know, I've just read Richard's review of our film, and I was still sort of processing it all. I've had good reviews in my day, but this one might take the cake. That's great to hear. Had an old, cold, black heart like mine kind of warmed up a little bit. It's pretty great. I'm David Remnick. Please join us next week for the story of how an airplane load of snow once landed in San Juan Puerto Rico for a Caribbean snowball fight.

That's a special episode we've produced in collaboration with WNYC's LaGrega. See you then. The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. Our theme music was composed and performed by Merrill Garbus of Tune Yards, with additional music by Alexis Quadrato. This episode was produced by Alex Barron, Emily Boutin, Ave Carrillo, Riannon Corby, Calli Leah, David Krasnow, Gauphin and Putubuele, Louis Mitchell, Michelle Moses, and Stephen Valentino. And we had additional help from Harrison Keithline. The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported in part by the Cherina Endowment Fund.