WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 565 - Paul Thomas Anderson

Episode Date: January 4, 2015

Director Paul Thomas Anderson joins Marc in the garage for a thorough discussion of each and every one of Paul's films, including his latest, Inherent Vice. Paul explains his creative process and spills some amazing on-set stories about Boogie Nights, Magnolia, The Master and more. Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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fucking ears what the fuck nicks what the fuckadelics i am mark maron this is wtf welcome it's time to get back to work today i I hope you're rested. You didn't annihilate yourself like a child on New Year's. You 40 to 50 year old people who might be still trying to bounce back here on January 5th from the mistakes you made on the eve of the 1st. Perhaps not mistakes, but man, it doesn't get any easier, does it does it does not get any fucking easier today is a pretty fucking big day people today on the show i'm going to talk to paul thomas anderson the director of many a great film his current film inherent vice uh is playing in theaters and it expands even more theaters across this large country of ours on friday i saw inherent vice and then i got a screener of it because I'm a member of several guilds

that votes for awards. Get a lot of screeners, so I'm happy I had the opportunity to watch it again, and I will watch it again and again. Not unlike any of Paul Thomas Anderson's movies, I need to watch him at least three times just to get in my head

this expanse of his uh of his vision i i get angry at his movie sometimes because i watch them and i'm like ah fuck now i'm gonna have to see that again almost immediately and then probably another time after that before i can even get into the groove to process the vision here. It's very provocative stuff. He's a rare artist. He's a rare artist that when you return to his work or her work, a true act of genius in my mind, I may have said this on the show before,

a true work of genius is something that you can return to and continues to evolve in meaning for you, which is, you know, that's relative to you anyway. So it's not like it's going to be a general thing. But if you can return to an artist's work and get a different thing or more thing or a whole new thing out of it every time you approach it over the years, that qualifies as a work of genius in my mind. And Paul Thomas Anderson has made several. And I talked to him about that.

I talked to him about the current film. I go through all the films. We know the films. Boogie Nights, Heartache, Magnolia, Punch Drunk Love. I'm just going off the top of my head here. There Will Be Blood, The Master, this new one inherent vice it was interesting talking to him about pension because i've been doing a little purging myself today in the last few days i i finally after writing a script and by the way can i just say thank you for all the

feedback on the second season of marin which is up on netflix now the number of people that watch it on netflix is-blowing, and it's very exciting for me to see all this feedback coming from the season. Very supportive, reassuring feedback. People are enjoying the show. We didn't get much of that, and I think that's the beauty of Netflix, that people are coming to the show. The first season as well, I'm getting some of those tweets where people are like, how come I never knew who you were about, you know, ever in any way? I'm glad I'm still a discoverable entity.

Obviously I am. But seriously, I'm glad you're enjoying the show. And if you haven't watched it yet, it is on Netflix. It's so fucking encouraging and humbling and exciting that people are enjoying the show so much. We're deep in work on the next season. We're writing.

I just finished my script, which is I'm coming back around to what I was getting into. The script I wrote this season, solo wrote without, you know, we'll get it up on the on the lift and we'll go over it. But it was about I don't want to give away much much but it does involve an ex-wife and about stuff about stuff that I have in my house I have just tons of stuff from all different times of my life some of them you know stuff from marriages I'm still using plates I'm still using the fiesta wear that I got on my first marriage which is but I don't think about it I don't think I think about it I think like you know I'm just lazy but it's like that's fucking ridiculous I've got a few bucks I mean you know get rid of this shit to me it doesn't mean anything but I don't think I think about it. I think like, you know, I'm just lazy, but it's like, that's fucking ridiculous. I've got a few bucks.

I mean, you know, get rid of this shit. To me, it doesn't mean anything, but I don't think, I think I'm lying to myself with that. I think I have a lot of artifacts of different periods of my life with women included and artifacts of those relationships that keep me comfortable or keep me sort of in unconsciously reminded of my loss or my grief or the pain of the absence

and then i started going through t-shirts and my clothes and i just started getting rid of shit not even i'm not going to sell anything on ebay i'm going to goodwill with it you just you have to make the commitment to let it go it's like these are dead items i mean i don't know why i negotiate with objects like i'm some sort of fucking hoarder. And then there's a stack of T-shirts that I keep because the places they represent, either in my life or in reality, no longer exist anymore. There are T-shirts that I had to wear at certain points of time. No, I had to wear them for safety.

Certain T-shirts that involved an artist of some kind. I went on Twitter to find this artist that did this series of T-shirts that involved an artist of some kind. I went on Twitter to find this artist that did this series of t-shirts that I had to wear. This guy named Michael Roman in San Francisco, a street artist that did a series of shirts with skeletons on them, sort of Day of the Dead oriented. And there was a period where I had to wear these t-shirts in my mind for protection. They were symbolic somehow. I was a little nuttier then. These are magical objects. Things have symbols. Things lead you places. And it's very weird about truth and protection they were symbolic somehow i was a little nuttier then these are magical objects things have symbols things lead you places and it's very weird about truth and about thomas

pinchin and about uh you know in talking to to paul thomas anderson we talk extensively about pinchin my primary experience with pinchin in terms of how he changed my life was with the crying of lot 49 which is a a sort of uh of historical conspiracy theory that persists through symbols and esoteric communities. And when I first read that, it was like, oh, my God, this is real. This is the truth. This is how life works. And I think there is an element that is cryptic about life, obviously.

But in terms of those kind of truths, you know, pursuing the big truth, connecting the dots, you know, I had to let some of that go because I had to look at the internal truth, you know, in terms of like some of the movies he's done, like The Master or Boogie Nights and about people who are either in conflict or easily led or looking for something or looking for power. These themes, you know themes sort of all come together, a lot of it in inherent vice, in a very comedic, very lyrical, it's almost like a movie collage of a time,

and you have to follow the signs. Follow the signs. But my point being is that your personal truth, you better get that shit straight before you look for the bigger truths, because if you don't know who you are or where you sit inside, you're going to be taken for a fucking ride man that ride is fine but if it's a big mystery to you you better get your shit straight

get your vessel in order learn how to fucking drive it so at least you have some control when the ride starts when you're stuck in it and you can't get out make sure your vessel is intact and you know who's in control of it or you're going to get and you can't get out make sure your vessel is intact and you know who's in control of it or you're gonna get fucked i think that's what pinch was trying to say look let's you know there's a long interview let's just let's go talk to paul thomas centers he was very gracious and great to talk to i didn't know what to expect I decided he was like a looming, perhaps tormented, brooding guy. But he was fucking great to talk to. Okay, let's do this.

Enough. All right? I hope you're all right. I'm okay. Let's talk to Paul Thomas. You can get anything you need with Uber Eats. Well, almost, almost anything. So no, you can't get an ice rink on Uber Eats.

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The city's visionaries are turning heads around the globe across all sectors each and every day. They embody Calgary's DNA. Thank you. Take a closer look at CalgaryEconomicDevelopment.com. And then I tried to stop and I couldn't stop and did the patches, and I found the lozenge, and I was like, this is the best thing ever. I can just eat my nicotine. I can get the buzz. I have maximum control over it. I'm not inhaling hot smoke. I can do it in bed. I would wake up with lozenges in my mouth

Paul but do you feel like a quitter what to get off them here's the weird thing I don't know if you've ever how long have you been smoking well I was 18

right so that's right we start when we're kids I started when I was like 14 or 15 whatever it's holding back it's all in there. You know what I mean? I mean, obviously, your creative output is not stifled. And certainly, it does keep your brain busy. But emotionally, it's a little overwhelming to remove the tamper. It just tamps shit down.

Yeah. So I don't feel like a quitter. I'm a little scared of what's going to happen. Do you exercise? I did today. What'd you do? I go on and off. No, I ran the hills around here.

Right. I run. Do you exercise? I run. I do yoga. You do yoga? Yeah,. I run. Do you exercise? I run. I do yoga. You do yoga? Yeah, because I smoke. But I mean, don't you feel, have that moment where you're, how much can you run really?

You're right. There is that moment when you realize, if I really want to get better at this or keep going. Yeah. I got to stop. How much do you smoke? Not much. Uh-huh. I mean, not like I used to. I do you smoke? not much uh huh

I mean not like I used to I used to smoke you know a pack a day oh you're not even not doing a pack? no no no I mean if things are hectic or you're on set

or things are really stressful when you're making a movie yeah pack and a half two packs a day if you're around Joaquin Phoenix yeah

that's like smoking a pack a day he smokes like a lunatic. Does he? What brand? American Spirits. Yellow. What do you smoke?

Same. Really? Yeah. Oh, man. See, they weren't even around when I smoked. Isn't that crazy? Well, the whole thing that they put out there was like, you know, we're an all natural. Sure, man.

It's healthy. Exactly. Health food cigarettes. Yeah. And the Indians are getting the money, so don't worry about it. It's really- Are they even getting the money? No, they're owned by RJ Reynolds. Right. It's Indians are getting the money, so don't worry about it. It's really- Are they even getting the money? No, they're owned by R.J. Reynolds.

Right. It's a fucking scam. Fell for it again. But- Anything to help justify, you know. It's great. Smoking is great. And in the new movie, Inherent Advice, everyone's just smoking.

Yeah. Enjoying their outfits. Yeah. And smoking cigarettes. Everyone's unshaven it's fucking beautiful did you see it i did see it good i went saw it the other night but we're not going to start there okay i can't start there i mean i could but uh so you're living out in the valley you grew up here i grew up in studio city your whole whole life? Yeah. Los Angeles, California. Yeah. Born here.

Is that shocking? To me, it's a mythical place, Los Angeles, California. When people are born here and they have their whole life here, if they're not celebrities of some kind, I'm like, how does that happen? Right. There's some weird magical dark place to me. You grew up in a magical dark place. It is a magical dark place. It is a magical dark place.

It is. It is. And you felt that early on? I didn't know any different. I mean, I kind of, I'm starting to realize it now, living other places and coming back. But I think there are

darker, more magical places within this very large city. Like Los Feliz is very dark and magical. In what way is it dark to you? Only in that I lived there for about a year and, you know, the feeling of ghosts was kind of strong. And not that I ever saw one, not that I ever touched one, but just some little echo kind of around that made me feel, being from the being from studio city like uh this is this feels

like another world so i just kind of split like i can't imagine growing up here but i was sort of obsessed with you know the black and white nature of hollywood like you know if you look at just look at the stills of old hollywood movie stars you read kenneth anger's book yeah and your your entire brain gets saturated with this sort of like, what is going on here? Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, it's kind of like if poltergeist had been made, they should have showed that to the city planners and said, just make sure you don't build shit where shit shouldn't be built. Right. Right. Yeah.

Yeah, you know, we should stay away from them. And the Comedy Store on Sunset is probably one of them. Yeah, definitely is. It's like Burroughs said, the evil was there before anything was built. Right. Do you believe that? Oh, I sure do. I mean, I'm sure that those Indians were sort of walking down Sunset Boulevard and said,

let's make a left. Stay away from this one little pocket right there. I often said that it's built over one of the few existing gates to hell. Uh-huh. And the evil just comes up through the floorboards, and those who are talented are able to make it funny. Well, there's kind of a gravitational pull towards that area, right? I mean, obviously for a breed of person.

Well, what about that fucking Sunset Towers, the hotel? That's sort of notoriously... What is that? I don't know. Have you seen the mural on that place? Have you looked at it with the blimp and the airplanes, that weird... Oh, that weird?

Oh, that new mural that they have up there? It's not even new. It's right over where you enter. There's some sort of like fresco thing that's been there forever. And I'm like, what is that about? There's a Zeppelin in there and there's planes and there's an altar on the top. I was very hung up with that shit. That hotel's been curious for a while. I mean, that was abandoned and empty.

Remember that? Yeah, it was gutted when I was. Yeah. And it just stood there, this monolith of weirdness. I thought it was like a nest for ghosts. And now it's like, you know, hip central. I mean, you know, I've never been in one of those rooms, I imagine. Swept there.

The night I swept there was the night of that big earthquake, the Northridge earthquake. No shit. In like 90, what was it, 92, 93? You were up... I was up. Oh, up oh god dude i can't there's no end of material when it comes to this town i mean there's no end of material really i mean it's endlessly fascinating but there's something about like especially well let's go back to where you come from but like in in in boogie nights and in magnolia you tapped into this energy here don't you feel sure i do yeah um

particularly of the valley yeah which you know which is where you grew up which is where i grew up so i can hold it in my hand and i do feel like i do feel like i could speak about it with some authority without feeling like an imposter you know i mean to talk about greater los angeles and try and dive into what really is going on here, it's too big a subject to wrap my mind around. But with Boogie Nights, when I remember making that, I was like, I'm really making a movie about the neighborhood that I grew up in.

You know? Yeah. It was not that far from what I knew. It was what I knew. Well, did you have siblings? Many, yeah. You do? Yeah.

How many? Well, my mom and my dad had four kids, me and my three sisters. And then my dad had a first marriage where we had five kids. Really? So he had nine kids total. Do you know those other ones? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're all cool?

Yeah. I'm number seven of nine. Did you grow up with the other ones? In and out. They were older. By the time my mom came on the scene and had us. They were, you know, which was great for me. They were kind of like of age. They had cars.

We could take us to R-rated movies. So you could learn things. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You need those. There's people I talk to, creative people, that they were blessed with the older siblings. Yeah. Who are like, here are my records. Here are the magazines and books you should look at.

And this is what we're going to watch. It's absolutely true. Were you the oldest? I was the oldest. I had to go out to record stores and make friends with people who worked at bookstores to get my information. Yeah, that's... It was harder for me.

Yeah, I don't know that I would have had the guts to do that without a little bit of help from my older brothers. Yeah. And they were dirty. They were into like rock bands, and they had rock bands and fast cars and stuff. And here in LA, they were dirty. They were into, like, rock bands. They had rock bands and fast cars and stuff. And here in L.A., they were in L.A. too? Yeah, yeah.

Really? Well, they came from back east. They were born... They lived in Cleveland and then kind of made their way out. That's where your old man's from? My old man is technically from Boston and then spent a lot of time in Cleveland,

and that's where he met my mom. He was notorious in Cleveland. Yes. I didn't realize this. Were you aware of him at all? Not until I stumbled upon some research that I didn't mean to do. I wanted it all to be organic. But someone had said that your dad was in show business,

but I had no idea that he was sort of like this nerd myth. Like they're sort of like, what know, what do you call it? Kind of a Mondo video kind of dude. It was a big time thing and it was funny because I was talking about the Chrissy Hine thing.

Yeah. She was from Akron. Right. So people even from Akron, like a lot of those cool bands and stuff were deep into this thing that my dad was doing

on Friday nights which is hosting horror movies which is a common thing. Local TV stations. Every town's got a local guy. Right. But my dad was doing on Friday nights, which is hosting horror movies, which is a common thing. Local TV stations. Every town's got a local guy. Right. But my dad just seemed to do it in a way that was, he presented these scary movies, but

also let you know how shitty they were at the same time. So it was tongue in cheek, and he kind of played on the campiness of it. Absolutely. Right. And yeah, you see them now and they seem a bit tame, but I think they were kind of mind-blowing when they were happening. But wasn't he, didn't he have a shtick?

Oh yeah, he had a shtick with the goatee. Yeah. Glasses with one lens missing. Yeah. And he would kind of talk like this, kind of like a Transylvanian accent. Yeah. And he would just say the most bizarre things. It was really about,

the message he would send is, don't rat on your friends. Don't be a purple kniff. And that was, kniff was fink backwards. Right. So don't be a fink. Oxnard was a word that he would just randomly say because he thought it was funny.

And I guess this just had people howling, thinking how groovy. And he went under the moniker of... Goularty. Goularty. Goularty. Yeah. And this was just something he put together. He was basically, what was he, a local TV guy?

He was a local TV announcer. Right. He was the booth announcer. Right. And then when these local stations would buy these package of horror films, they needed somebody to go on and introduce them. And he said, I'll do that. But he didn't take it seriously or really try to scare anybody.

He just kind of took it as an opportunity to completely fuck off and light firecrackers and blow stuff up and be- On TV. On TV, yeah. So it was like the soupy sales approach. What's the soupy sales approach? Well, just sort of like you're kind of doing something for kids, but you're kind of pushing the envelope a little bit.

Right, right, right. You know, like, it's like, this isn't for kids. Right. What does it mean, don't like, this isn't for kids. Right. What does it mean, don't be a rat? It's true. I mean, I got a bunch of kids running around my house, and I have to remind them, they come, so-and-so stole my thing.

Don't be a rat. Don't rat on your brother and sister. Did you say that? Yeah, absolutely. How many kids do you got? Four. Is that just something you did because you grew up like that? Probably.

I mean. You're married to Maya Rudolph? That's right. Yeah. It's nice to have a lot of kids running around the house. Really makes you

feel good, right? Yeah. It's like having a warm fire. And every once in a while it's like throwing a bag of cats into a warm

fire. It could be a nightmare, but it's the best. So your old man, Goularty, he did this number. There's not much film of him around.

Little clips you can find on YouTube. You gotta understand, he was also partners with Tim Conway. Really? Yeah, they both started out. In Cleveland? In Cleveland. Tim Conway's funny. Tim Conway's really funny. And they were kind of a duo where my dad was the straight man and they would do

local comedy bits on television. The way that it was told to me is that Steve Allen came through town and saw how funny Tim was and said, you want you to come out to Hollywood and leave that guy here, leave that guy behind. So, you know, my dad needed something to do.

So he did Goularty. And then I think he said to my dad, you got to get out here. I mean, Tim did. Tim said, you got gotta get out here i mean tim did tim tim said you gotta get out of this work everywhere and my dad came out and there was just no work to be found at all for him did him and tim stay friends oh yeah for sure really grew up with him and all his kids yeah with conway oh yeah is he still all right yeah he's doing great

oh good um those guys that was an amazing thing to grow up around, those guys. Well, did you grow up around Carol Burnett in that? She came around a little bit because my dad was the booth announcer at the Carol Burnett show. He was? Yeah, that was the job. They threw him as a bone because he couldn't get work as an actor. That was his first gig in Hollywood. I think so, yeah.

As the booth announcer at the Carol Burnett show. So you're watching, you could theoretically. How old were you? Six. Harvey Korman. Harvey Korman. Lyle Wagner. Yeah. Vicki Lawrence, Carol Burnett, you could theoretically. How old were you? Six. Harvey Korman. Harvey Korman. Lyle Wagner. Yeah.

Vicki Lawrence, Carol Burnett, Tim Conway. Right. That was the crew. Yeah. And Harvey and Tim were around more than anybody. At your house. Yeah, we would see them. Yeah.

Those are the ones. If you want to have people hanging around. The best. And there was a guy named Joe Hamilton that was married to Carol Burnett. And he was the producer of the show. I mean, the coolest guy you've ever seen in your life. The most handsome. He had just blasted by the sun and this white hair and these V-neck Gucci sweaters and the Gucci loafers.

And I just thought, that is the coolest guy I've ever seen in my life. I want that job. That's the guy? Yeah. So you were in it. You were in show business. Yeah, it was around. I mean, that was the industry your father worked in.

Yeah. So you were in TV business. But you know what? Actually, it was the best of all worlds because it wasn't the kind of show side of it. It was actually situations a lot like this. Because he was an announcer, I was always in the back booths and the control rooms and that kind of stuff and seeing that part of it. Right. Which still to this day, I mean, I'm leaving here and going to another dark control room.

Are you? What do you got to do? Just to finish off the DVD and stuff like that. But every time I get in those rooms, I go, man, I love it. I love this environment. I love this world. Well, it's very private and it's very interesting. And what's interesting about what I do is getting used to just hearing your voice and you're it's you know that's what that's all you do you know i'm talking and i'm

comfortable hearing my voice in my head right and so your dad was a funny guy yeah and and did you get along with him the whole way through yeah pretty much pretty i i can't look back and say there was ever a stretch where it was like any kind of father son what about your mom what she what did she do? She's good. She was an actress and she tried to sort of put it around and did commercials and stuff

but I turned to my mom the other day as she was over and I was trying to get these four kids out of the house and I just got down on my knees

and I said, I'm so sorry for every single thing I ever did to you, you know, and she said, well, you're welcome.

Yeah, because it's a full-time job. I know. I guess I'm yet to apologize to my mother. Oh, man, I have to tell you, it made me feel good. Was it genuine at that moment? It really was. You needed to be done. It was the most I could muster.

But it struck you at that moment. It did. That's interesting. And how struck you at that moment. It did. That's interesting. And how long ago did your dad pass? 97. Yeah? Yeah. But he was older.

I mean, I lost him too soon, but he was older. He was born in 23. Yeah. So he was, I mean, it's nuts to me how old he was when he was still having kids. So did that, he sounded like he was a pretty funny guy. He was a very funny guy. You know, they, one night, I'll tell you a story. Tim Conway, this is a perfect example of the kind of environment that,

like Tim was over with my dad, and they were just getting absolutely hammered. And Polaroid cameras had just kind of come into fashion, and they were just getting absolutely hammered. And Polaroid cameras had just kind of come into fashion and they were sort of accessible. And so they took a picture. Tim wrapped his head in toilet paper just so he looked like the mummy. You could barely see out of it. And they took a Polaroid of Tim. Right.

Then they cut the Polaroid up and they put it on Tim's driver's license. Yeah. And they said, let's go drive down the street and try and get pulled over. So they fucking went, I mean, hammered, absolutely hammered, driving down Ventura Boulevard. It's just two grown men. Two grown men only to get pulled over so they could play the joke so that when the cop said license, and by the way, Tim is driving the car with the toilet paper on his head so that when the cop says license and registration, he can hand over his license. Just so they could get a laugh.

Just so they could get a laugh. I mean, it was that level of insanity. Did they do it? Yes, they did it. Tim still has the driver's license. He does? Yes. Oh, that's beautiful.

I mean, it was that. has the driver's license. He does? Yes. Oh, that's beautiful. I mean, it was that, it was really just making each other laugh and messing around

with no audience except the cop. If they got lucky to get pulled over, that's how crazy they were. So, when you have characters, you know,

like the Jason Robards character, Magnolia, was that in any way, do you work through any of that's dynamic with your father? Yeah, I mean, a lot of it wasn't even, I don't know if it's working through it, I was just sort of regurgitating a certain pain that happened after losing him. Did he die of cancer? He did, yeah.

Very similar to Jason Robards in the movie. And I don't even know what I had to work through. I just sort of wrote it out pretty close as it happened. There's a lot of words in Jason's mouth that never came out of my dad's mouth. But that's how, you know, that's right in a movie. Right. But, yeah, it was kind of... He wasn't well either at that time, was he, Jason?

He wasn't. No, it was kind of, he wasn't well either at that time, was he Jason? He wasn't, no, it was his last movie and he had gone through his own fight with a couple different cancers and by the time he came to us, he was, it was amazing. He said, I got to bring my oxygen tank, you know, I said, no problem. But he had one scene that was like, it was like four pages of dialogue, four straight pages of dialogue and he just nailed it. I mean, to be mid-70s, late-70s, sick, dying of cancer, and to sort of rattle off five pages of dialogue, I mean. Heavy, man.

Very heavy. Hell of a presence, that guy. Yeah. And he was a charmed man. And, boy, he would tell us stories. He was a great guy, really great. So when did you start making the movies um like when did that when did it hit you i mean like what we like when you were in high

school and shit where'd you go to high school out in the valley yeah out in the valley what kind of cars you have i didn't have a car i mean i i i had a the family we had a family wagon that i i totaled and my dad said, that's it. Well, good job on that. So I just always hitched rides with people. Eventually, when I got out of high school, I had a Pontiac Sabre. Le Sabre, I think it was called. But I always made movies.

I mean, from the second I realized what it was and I could do it, and there was a camera. My older brother had an 8mm camera. But when video cameras came around, whenever that was, 80? Yeah it and there was a camera. My older brother had an eight millimeter camera but when video cameras came around, whenever that was 80, 79, 80. Right. And there was one and you realized you could do that, forget it, I mean it was just all we did.

You were a kid then, cause I graduated in 81 and I'm 51, you're what, 44. All right, so you're definitely. So I was 10, I was 11. Right, when you could do that, when your dad probably came home with one my dad came home with one yeah and it was like there was nobody else that was going to hold that camera but me in the house it was like that's mine i want that you know

yeah i just yeah from there and was it what drove you to make movies i mean like i mean i know that like people like spielberg and people always have that experience of like you know making the stop action shit and doing the super h stuff and experimenting with the idea but it seems that you were absorbing something at some point because all of your movies have very specific tones so you know when did you start understanding it on a sophisticated level or were you just doing it as a goof i was just doing it as a goof i mean but you mentioned the spielberg and all those guys those are the guys that were making movies like you sort of discover as a kid i was six five six seven years old seeing jaws seeing star wars seeing all that stuff that's like blows your mind and then i guess when you when you sort of graduate

out of that a little bit you know first time i saw raging bull or first time i you sort of graduate out of that a little bit, you know, the first time I saw Raging Bull or the first time I was sort of exposed to Jonathan Demme's movies or Robert Downey Sr., people like that, and then you saw Altman, and then everything started to kind of be, it started to get really, it got more interesting. How old were you? It felt more like that, it felt like,

I don't know, but if I were ever to do it, maybe it would look like that. That was kind of the feeling. Those things had a, like they, they seemed grittier, more real, challenging. They just spoke to me. Right. Right. Like weird.

Yeah. Raw. Right. Yeah. Robert Downey senior movies. They're like, what's going on here? Yeah. So Putney Swope.

Putney Swope was the first one I saw. And that changed my life. Same with Louie? Yeah. So Putney Swope? Putney Swope was the first one I saw. And that changed my life. Same with Louis. Yeah, I know. I mean, and I think I came to it the same way that he did, is that you're just sort of like, it was going into the videos the same way somebody might go into a record shop

and just devouring whatever you could find and looking for that thing. Like, where's that thing that's going to open my mind and getting lucky enough to come across that video box right this great poster right and putting it in and saying this is it it's like i've been searching for something that i didn't even know what i was after what was it about that film that made you go like holy shit you can do this what was that holy shit you can do this you can talk like this you can have you can be this funny you can be this you can you can you can um insult everyone you can be political i mean it was it was that it

was funny first it was like it it was it was politically charged it was intelligent it had something to say and it was experimental but that was all secondary because it was funny first, and that was what was cool about it. You know what's trippy is that this movie, Inherent Vice, is really the closest you've come to Putney Swope. Yeah. I tried. I said that to Bob.

I said, I was just trying to do what you would do. He said, I wouldn't have done it like that. You talked to him about Inherent Vice? Yeah, I did. But, I mean, like all the things you just listed off, inherent advice yeah i did but i mean like all the things you just listed off i mean if i listen if i look at your other films i mean they're in there i mean you know on some layer but because of the way pinch and writes because of the time that is being depicted there everything is loaded on all levels with all of that yeah you know who's

in charge what's the power structure you know where the drugs at i think it's something with these guys um i i think pinch on and downy senior probably about the same age so guys and they're both from new york too so i don't know what they were really into i can think it was lenny bruce probably right you know who else might have been really influencing them spike jones i know was a big influence on pinch on he's talked about that but something in the water with these guys and how they kind of could look at the world and such a kind of compassionate but upside down like they didn't give a fuck but they gave a fuck well the weird thing is is that you got to figure that that was the turning of the like after you know eisenhower and then after the vietnam war shit just turned upside down i mean you know they come through the beatniks and lord buckley and lenny bruce and then all of a sudden like it's fucking you know, Eisenhower, and then after the Vietnam War, shit just turned upside down. I mean, you know, they come through the beatniks

and Lord Buckley and Lenny Bruce, and then all of a sudden, like, fucking, you know, everything's unleashed. Right. And those guys grew up leashed. It's funny you mention Eisenhower because I saw this interview

with Downey Sr. the other day from the first Toronto Film Festival. So this must have been, he was there with a film called Chafed Elbows. This must have been 66, whatever. And he said, Eisenhower's the best president we ever had because he didn't do anything. I want a guy who does nothing.

I want a president that goes, plays golf, and doesn't do anything. And he's talking about Nixon. He says, we've got a real problem coming because this guy doesn't have a sense of humor. Right. And A was dead serious as he's talking about it. And it really hit me like things were peculiar. I mean, it must have been really horrifying to get a president of the United States who has zero sense of humor. But I also think, you know, at that time after the war and when Ellsberg put out the Pentagon Papers and stuff was being revealed.

Yeah. That, you know, because you're making a movie by a guy who sort of invented hippie conspiracy literature and created the idea that there's multiple levels of power and there are secret societies and you're never going to get to the bottom of it. And it's almost like a futile search. Right. But that's the journey. Yeah. And their entire reality was shattered. Yeah.

And it's like, how could they believe anything? Yeah. No, it's true. I mean, it's nice to understand that now because unfortunately when I was growing up, I don't know if you, sometimes the parents of friends of mine would be just sort of like, oh, the 60s, man. And it kind of became like this vague annoyance, like what are they going on about? Right, right, right. And maybe they were talking about something else and they weren't clear headed about it.

But when you put it in the terms that you just did, it really must have felt like a nuclear bomb dropped on all your- On culture. Yeah. And then the people that were able to sort of deal with it were like, all right, brave new world. Right. Let's go.

Right. When's the party start? Right. So you didn't go to school for movies? No, not really. I mean, I say not really in that I went to, no, I didn't go. You didn't go to school for movies? No, not really. I mean, I say not really in that I went to... No, I didn't go. You didn't go to college?

I did go to college for a second. I went to Santa Monica City College for a second. And I went to Emerson College for a year. In Boston? Yeah. Really? What year? Did you know any of my friends?

Did you make friends there? Not really. A lot of cats went there. Dave Cross went there. I didn't know David Cross. Dennis Leary went there. Dennis Leary was before me. Steve Bell.

Are you from Boston? No, I went to college in Boston. I lived there for a long time. Where did you go to college? Went to Boston University. Right. I did five years undergrad at Boston University. Did a year at Curry College out in Milton.

Did my time. I lived there. Then I went back and started my comedy career there. I've been in and out of Boston a long time. I love Boston. All right, so you dropped out of college. Is that what happened? Or you just didn't go back?

I just didn't go back. It didn't stick in your head that it was something you needed. That's interesting. But, you know, I mean, in that arrogant way, I felt like, why do I need this for, man? I'm like a card-carrying professional already. I've been doing this since I was 10. Yeah, I've got a camera. I've like a card-carrying professional already. I've been doing this since I was 10. Yeah, I've got a camera.

I've got a camera. And I think it was just, it just felt like a drag. It didn't really, and I would have to say that probably just because I didn't find a teacher that kind of spoke to me. The funny thing was is when I was at Emerson for that year, David Foster Wallace, who was a great writer who was not known then was my teacher

he was an english teacher really yeah is that what you were studying yeah and i my you know i was the first teacher i fell in love with and i never found anybody else like that at any of the schools that i'd been to which makes me really reticent to talk shit about schools or anything else because it's just like any place like if you could find a good teacher man i mean i'm sure that I'd been to, which makes me really reticent to talk shit about schools or anything else because it's just like any place. Like, if you could find a good teacher, man, I mean, I'm sure school would be great. So why didn't you stay? He left.

So you were there with him for a year? Yeah. And were you, you spent a lot of time with him? You know, I didn't, no, I didn't stay. And in that classic move, I thought, oh, you know, I want to get to New York. That's where I'm supposed to go. I'm supposed to go to NYU, you know, I want to get to New York. That's where I'm supposed to go. I'm supposed to go to NYU, you know, because it had this good rep and all that. The film school?

The film school. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And dummy that I am, I did it and I got there and I thought, I don't want to be here. I wish I was back in Boston, you know, taking English classes. Great place to go to school, Boston. Yeah. Did you spend a lot of time with David Foster Wallace? No, just in class.

Oh, really? Yeah. You weren't one of those guys that after class, you're like, hey, can I talk to you? No, I called him once. He was very generous with his phone number. He said, call me if you got any questions. Right. I called him a couple times.

Yeah? What'd you say? I ran a few ideas by him about this paper that I was writing. I was writing a paper on Don DeLillo's White Noise. Hail of bullets. Yeah, and I'd come up

with a couple crazy ideas and he, I just, I don't remember the conversation well but I just remember him being real generous at like,

you know, midnight, the night before it was due. You were freaking out? All jacked up? Yeah, basically. I'm almost done, man.

I was, it was like, I think I'd written a pretty good paper. It was like cooking a pretty good dish, and at the last minute, just panicking and thinking, I got to add some more shit on this, on top of it. Or you missed the point, like, oh, that's what it's about. Right. Yeah.

And just, there was no cut and paste back then, either. If you typed it out, you were- That book was a life changer for me, man. Was it really? A little bit. I'd love to go back and read it again. I would actually yeah did you read gravity's rainbow you can be honest man no one's gonna judge you here i still haven't gotten to gravity's rainbow no one has and few people in the in the you know you know you ask the people who who have done it the people that are like i got through it it. It's like, and? I got through it.

I mean, it's nice to have lying around the house, you know, makes you look smart. You started it every once. What is it? A screaming comes across the sky. Screaming comes across the sky. I mean, it's all down. It's got to be downhill from that. The best opening line of a book ever. I need to try it again.

And I think I could now. He's got a way of writing that makes you think he knows things that we don't know, you know? Exactly. Even in the exchanges that you're able, and it was no small task to make a movie script out of his writing, you know, in terms of dialogue. But hearing it come out of actual people

was sort of exciting because it does, there is that weird kind of like, are they going to get to what what's being hidden is what it is like there's always something being unsaid or or intentionally hidden or or or they're just not quite don't quite have it yet yeah damn it you know but let's go okay so now how did like what happened with heartache that changed your life i i just it was a you know that i was way too young to be given the keys to the car i think how old were you 23 and what was the movie called originally sydney and you wrote it because of why

i wrote it because i had to because it just came out why that character good question i loved this actor named Philip Baker Hall. Still love him. Yeah. You use him a lot. Yeah. You've used him a few times. Yeah, yeah.

And honestly, I can remember just starting to write one day, January, torrential downpour. I was living with my dad up in Coldwater Canyon, and I just started writing, and that's what came out. And then I went to make the movie. And it wasn't based on anything? Not really. Yeah, it was based on stuff.

I'd been working in Reno. I'd spent some time up in Reno. Yeah. And I was coming off experiences there of watching old guys that seemed to live. Where'd you see Baker Hall? Secret Honor, Midnight Run, the long list of great character parts

where he would come on and be the best, coolest looking thing in the room. Secret Honor, is that the Altman? That's the Altman movie. The Nixon movie. Yeah. Who'd even play Nixon? He played Nixon.

It's just him in a room. That was him? Yeah. Why didn't I know that? That was astounding. It's great. And it's like not one that everyone knows. Mm-mm.

But he was always around, the he would be this he looked like somebody who just stepped out of the 1940s like one of those great character actors you see in those movies you saw him as the character absolutely and i heard his voice as the character and i was writing um and i kept thinking of you know another actor who had just started out that i'd been seeing a lot, John C. Reilly. Right. Who'd been in maybe five or 10 films at that point, but I just thought, my God, this guy's so good.

Yeah. So I went and I made that movie and got through it somehow. I just bluffed my way through directing. Well, you got a deal with who? It was a company called Reicher Entertainment. And you showed up with the script? Yeah. But you gotta understand that at that time, based on the success of pulp fiction and a couple other small independent

films there was a lot of cash floating around from these cable companies yeah so if you could make a movie for under two million bucks they could kind of sell it off piece by piece with just enough kind of genre elements and a couple cast names and you could just go make your movie right and i was bluffing my way through it and i kind of like and you could just go make your movie right and i was bluffing my way through it and i kind of like i should have had a 90 minute movie and i cut together this like two and a half hour thing and i thought you know i had to like plant a firm stake like i'm not changing a frame of it and they're like i don't know about that but really was i only i've only been working on it for three or four weeks and i just i hadn't had time to cut it

properly to cut it properly and I was just bluffing man I mean I was just completely making it up as I was going along and so what studio were you dealing with there was no studio it's just this company this little cable company that had some cash and they were going to sell it to the distributor here so what happened with it ultimately ultimately it came out in about four or five theaters and but how did the cut happen why is it not called what you wanted it to be called it was a long sad history of going through a rigmarole with this company and eventually i i won on the cut of the movie well what had happened was actually they said you can do what at a certain point it was just a war of attrition that they realized

that this this skinny, annoying kid is not going to leave us alone. Because that was just sitting outside their houses going, I want my movie. They weren't going to release it? They were going to release it. They were going to release another cut of it. And they finally said, they put it into my lap.

And they said, look, if you can put together your version of the movie, you can have it. And that was a lot of dough that it was going to take to do that, but I just signed on to make Boogie Nights. So I took all that money, and I said, okay, and I paid for it, and I did it, and then... What do you mean? I had to finish the film.

I had to really finish. We went through the process of making the movie. We edited the movie. They saw it. They said, we don't like this. I said, I like it. I mean, I had whittled it down to 90 minutes. And They said, we don't like this. I said, I like it. I mean, I had whittled it down to 90 minutes. And I said, we don't like it. We've got bigger

and better ideas. And they changed the music. They changed the title. They changed pretty much all that you could change. And I said, I just can't live with myself. I think I'm going to jump off a bridge. And they said, too bad. And then we got lucky

that it was a version of the film that I made that was sent to the Cannes Film Festival, and they said too bad and then we got lucky that it was a version of the film that I made and that was sent to the Cannes Film Festival and they invited it over so a couple good things started coming our way and eventually actually through their goodwill they did say fine you know if you want to do this you can do it but we're not paying for it so if you can come up with

the cash to reconstruct your version you can do it so that's where I took the money from Boogie Nights I I paid to finish this film. Why did you change your name? I didn't. That was that one moment where they said, we'll give you everything, but, and I just said, okay. If I win everything else, you get the name,

and it's fine with me. So it wasn't that huge of a mind fuck. It was emotionally a huge mind, and emotional, and it was a fuck in every way. It was just like baptism by fire, getting into Hollywood. It was crazy to go through that, and I didn't know how to deal with it. I was too young.

I didn't know how to deal. What was the main thing you learned out of that experience? Hmm. Was it a control thing? Yeah, I suppose. I think I went into my next situation thinking that the lesson I learned was to be paranoid, be protective, and don't trust anyone. And fortunately, I got to work with a great studio and a guy named Mike DeLuca, who was able to see what I had gone through. He said, no, no, trust me and put your faith in me and you can work with me.

He was your producer? Yeah. On Boogie Nights? Yeah. He sort of paid for the film and made the film. And that really- What studio? New Line.

Uh-huh. Which made a bunch of great films back in the 90s. In your mind, so the idea for Boogie Nights came from where? From pornography, from my life, from, yeah, from all that stuff. Right, but it started out as a short piece? It did, yeah. Which was a comic piece? Yeah, it was kind of like making like a fictional documentary, you know, that Spinal Tap style,

like about a- How long was that? Half hour. Okay, so that was a Dirk Diggler character. Yeah. Who played it in the short? This guy named Mike Stein. The only guy I knew that had long hair, and he wanted to be an actor, so- So that was a Dirk Diggler character. Yeah. Who played it in the short. This guy named Mike Stein. The only guy I knew that had long hair and he wanted to be an actor.

But it was a goof. Yeah. It was a fuck off. Yeah. For sure. And so that evolves into Boogie Nights, which is not really a goof. Right. But there's comedic elements.

Sure. But you didn't shoot that one as a comedy. Boogie Nights? Yeah. We were laughing a lot when we made it no obviously but um but no i mean i think by then yeah it things settled and and doing something about pornography got a little bit more well-rounded rather than just laughing at the goof of it all in your mind what's that movie about? Boogie Nights? Yeah.

I don't even remember now because I feel like I'm just regurgitating things that I've read about it over the years, that it's about family, surrogate family. Yeah. And I suppose that really is what it's about, you know. And it's about filmmaking. Yeah. It's about the valley. It's about filmmaking yeah it's about the valley it's about family it's also about the the like there's a monumental moment that you know the shift from film to video is a big fucking deal

absolutely yeah and that's where you brought in the heavy that's right where you brought in hall to deliver the news that's right right yeah i mean these stories are good these kind of an end of a certain kind of innocence you know that always sort of makes for a good thing. And I think that's what's going on there. It's singing in the rain, basically. It's like, you know, what happens when we got to start talking? You know, what happens when video comes in? Now anybody can make a porno movie?

Yeah. What the fuck? You know. Now, how much porn did you grow up with outside of consuming it? I mean, did you know houses in the valley? Did you? Yeah, yeah. There was one across the street from my grandmother's house.

Honest to God. And I probably wouldn't have put two and two together if she hadn't been so indignant about it all, that she saw this van there all the time and the windows were blacked out. And, you know, if you waited long enough, you would see some pretty suspicious-looking characters coming in and out of there.

Yeah, yeah. And then I remember so well looking at the frame of the front window. There was kind of a bay window in the front of the house, and any time I would watch a porno film, I'd be looking for that bay window. I'd be like, where's that bay? I wonder if that's in that house.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I feel like I saw it a few times, but I don't know. It's a pretty standard bay window. I'd be like, where's that bay? I wonder if that's in that house. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I feel like I saw it a few times, but I don't know. It's a pretty standard bay window in a valley. And then you also dealt with some of the drugs and some of the John Holmes story.

Yeah, there was a great Rolling Stone article that I read. That fucking thing was mind-blowing. That was, there was two things. That article was gigantic to me

to help figure some things out. And also, do you remember a show called a current affair yeah they did a piece on shauna grant who was a porn star who had a really sort of tragic end and she committed suicide but those two things were really like this sort of bridge the gap between growing up around it knowing what it, having a feel for it, and really seeing a fuller story. The heart of darkness. Yeah. But still, it's sort of upbeat.

Burt Reynolds really stayed steady for you on that one, didn't he? Yeah. He did. Man, Burt Reynolds. How was that? Tough. Yeah? Really tough. He was huge when we were kids. man Burt Reynolds well how was that tough yeah really tough um

he was like huge when we were kids oh Skamoke and the Bandit Hooper yeah I mean The Longest Yard

that was before yeah The Longest Yard was a little bit before but believe me I saw that on TV and it was all part of just

game ball idolizing him you know great um Hooper was a big one for me yeah you know when he would just the beginning and it was all part of just idolizing him. Hooper was a big one for me. Just the beginning when he just put on these pads as the stuntman. And yeah, I think there was, again, a big distance between that time and when we were working with him. He was tough, but ultimately it was great, and it was worth it.

Was he tough because he didn't trust you? I think so. I think that's, for sure, that's one element of it. I think that he had, I mean, he had a lot of goodwill. I mean, we all came, and we were all excited to work with him, and I think, to put myself in his shoes for a second, he, a lot of us were just starting starting out you know um maybe he'd seen riley in a couple things and there were a few people and but i think he felt pretty quickly

he sized it up and thought this i am slumming it and i don't know how i got here oh yeah and just wasn't feeling good to him that's funny because they get to a certain age where they don't really keep up so like maybe he saw some of those people. You know what I mean? Maybe he saw Riley. But, you know, he's down in Florida running his school. Right. But, you know, too, I mean, I don't know. I mean, I can only guess here.

But, you know, we didn't have any money. And you go from being the biggest movie star in the world and you're in a trailer and you're going to share the trailer with three different people. Maybe that's an element. But, again, he was a team player to a certain point. He really kind of like outdid himself in vulnerability wise, you know, and sort of being the rock. What is it with you and Ricky Jay? Oh, come on.

You love Ricky Jay? Ricky Jay, actually funny, Burt Reynolds and Ricky, Ricky Jay had the obligation when mark and burt are in this big fight scene out at the pool and yeah he's coming at mark he's saying get out of here you know you're high and all this kind of stuff and ricky jay had the job of holding burt back which is like not a job that r should have. You know, Ricky has these magician's hands and everything else. And Bert started to improvise.

And Mark says to something like, you know, I haven't been up for two days. He says, you don't look good. You've been up for two days. You've been doing blow everything else. He says, I haven't been up for two days. And Bert said, nevertheless, you don't look good, and I'm not going to shoot you this way. And so every time Bert would say nevertheless,

I kept noticing something happened over Ricky's face. I said, what's going on? And he said, I can't. I'm almost going to laugh. I'm suppressing laughter when he says nevertheless. And I said, why? And he told me this great story of being at a football game where this woman is being introduced to sing the national anthem,

and her name is Helen Forrest or whatever it is. And they said, now to sing the national anthem, Helen Forrest. And somebody in the stand screams, Helen Forrest sucks cock. Yeah. And the announcer says, nevertheless. It's a long story to tell, but I swear, and every time I see, if the movie's on TV or I see it, you can see Ricky Jay when Burt says, nevertheless, just like, why? Because of that trigger.

Right. So anytime I hear the word nevertheless, I think I'm going to explode. So what movies were informing you through that? Through Boogie Nights? Yeah. Well, Goodfellas was a big thing, you know. I mean, that was a kind of like way to look at,

you know, that kind of energy, that kind of cocaine energy, but also, too, that kind of like a subculture, like a tribe of people. Insulated. Insulated in their own little hierarchy, and here's the chief and here's the side people. And also, they can only socialize with themselves because at that time, you know, sex worker, you couldn't just be out having dinner parties. They weren't empowered yet. Right.

Right. You know, it was a freak show. Yeah. That was the biggest thing. I mean, Nashville, of course, and sort of the way that you have sort of multi-characters and sort of intersecting lives and all that kind of stuff. But that's something kind of moves through. That Altman thing kind of moves through you in a couple movies yeah for sure in the last and the newest one a lot right yeah the funny thing is it was the first time i really

tried to i mean i you know i had to size up i mean there's some similarities to the long goodbye but i i just thought you know i don't need to do another altman movie i didn't quite feel that i mean that would that i think The Long Goodbye is pretty sparse. Yeah, for sure. I mean, this is... This is not sparse. Altman, I mean, I think The Long Goodbye and Nashville, seeing them for the first time was probably one of the biggest

holy fucking shit moments of my life. What the fuck really look at this yeah for sure for sure but um but with this one

I remember thinking I've got to try to forget that this film exists the long goodbye because there's similarities you just forgot the detective thing and all that

but just put it to the side don't even think about it what about the big Lebowski and that came into my mind instantly when I read the book. I was like, well, fuck me. Okay, there's a lot of parallels here between what Pinchon has written and The Big Lebowski, which is an all-time classic for sure.

And again, it was working through that and going, you just got to ignore it. And obviously, I know it exists. I know every word of it, and I love it. But what's Pinchon all about here? And what's this thing i think you nailed that yeah we're gonna we're almost gonna get there i'm not done with the other stuff you in a hurry not at all i'm fine as a matter of fact have a cigarette all right do you need water or anything i do you do just a sip of water or no they've got this right here

you want me to go get some i don't want you you to leave. I won't leave, man. I'm not going to leave you out here. I like being here. This is just like it is in the Bob Dylan video. In the Bob Dylan video. That's your point of reference. All right, so now let's just do Magnolia. I'm going to do the same question again. In your mind, what is that movie about?

Like if you were to say one poetic line, give me a haiku. My dad. The whole thing. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. I line, give me a haiku. My dad. The whole thing. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. I mean, I just lost my dad and I wrote a movie. It was like that. I remember talking to an oncologist on the phone who was essentially telling me that there was no way my dad was going to make it.

And one of the first things that popped into my mind was, you know, you're telling me that frogs are falling from the sky. And I remember that kind of just popping into my mind because Michael Penn introduced me to the idea of Reign of Frogs. So that had been rattling around. Reign of Frogs as in biblical? Yeah, biblical or the non-biblical version of Reign of Frogs which is just you know sort of clippings of stories

where sort of bizarre occurrences would happen where a farmer wakes up and there's a field of frogs and there's nowhere oh so there's a folk tale of some kind yeah there's precedent yeah I thought I thought hearing that your dad is going to die is as bizarre as hearing

that frogs are falling from the sky. So it was about the death of your dad. Now, where did, how, like, obviously with the Robards character, and I'm going from memory, and I remember having this feeling about that movie. Like, I've had struggles with your movies before where I've had to sort of, like, repeatedly go see them because I felt like i'd walk out of your movie sometimes i'm like what does that guy want what does he want from me now i gotta go see that again right you know like all right this is the fifth time i'm going in to see this movie

i gotta turn something off to let something in here. Right. So do you take that as an insult? Well, no. What it makes me think is of times where I felt that way with filmmakers, I think, fuck this. I'm not coming back, you know, which is probably how I'd feel about my movies if I saw them. I'm not going back to this.

No, but I have to go back back i have to go back because they demand it you make movies that you know even if they bother you at first it's a lot to reckon with right and you know in magnolia at that time you loaded that thing up yeah that was an emotional like hurricane on all fucking levels yeah but you know that was like one of those moments in time where you just i had enough I had enough vinegar and confidence. And I wasn't really editing myself. And this sort of open wound and all that stuff came out. And certainly I don't look back.

I look back proudly at that. Well, you should. Yeah. But if you were given the opportunity to do another cut of it. Oh, I'd slice that thing down. It's way too fucking should. Yeah. But if you were given the opportunity to do another cut of it. Oh, I'd slice that thing down. I'd cut it. It's way too fucking long. Good.

Oh, no. It's unmerciful how long it is. No, I liked it, though, and I liked the frogs, but it seemed like there was a whole story in there. If I'm remembering it properly, there was one trajectory that could have just been taken out. Yeah, and maybe a few. Yeah, you won't get any, I won't defend it.

Julianne Moore was genius? Yep. Like that felt like out of life. I mean, was that something you had to deal with? Yeah. Was your father married to somebody else at that time? Yeah, he was. He'd gotten married again late in his life.

And it was a tragic, it was a sort of tragic end for this woman, really sweet woman, but she just couldn't handle his sickness, and she sort of had a sickness of her own, and it all kind of tumbled forward in a pretty similar way

to the way that it is in the movie, you know? I think when you're dealing with something like that, and thankfully, I didn't have any... Was she much younger? Not much younger, but she was younger.

But I think I just sort of, I was putting it all out there, not really even thinking twice. Loading it up. Yeah. And what was the Tom Cruise character to you? That was just a great character. I mean, really, that was. It was, but what sparked that?

Heard about a guy named Ross Jeffries who did those things and Kind of got obsessed by him and and just just couldn't resist when I was writing it out on the page and I would look At this thing that these guys where I was saying yeah, it was just too good I was like well, I've got to do this somehow, you know, were you astounded that Tom said yes a little bit But I but we we I'd met met him and he wanted to do something together, which was a vote of encouragement from him. And I was kind of in the middle of writing it. And then I just started to sort of tailor it, thinking if he wants to do this, then let's do it. Before we go on, I forgot.

I can't look at Alfred Molina without thinking of that scene. Do you know you ruined that guy for everybody? The firecracker? Yeah. I mean, that scene is like one of the greatest scenes ever put on film. Thank you. That song and that guy. Sister Christian.

Yeah, it's over. They're inseparable now. Well, that is a scene that really is those firecrackers. Where did that come from? It's a steal from Bob Downey. It's a steal from Putney Swope. It's a little bit of a steal from Putney Swope because he's got this character, Wing Sony, who shows up, who's got an assistant

in the background who's just randomly throwing firecrackers in the hallway of their ad business. And I think the other thing was that my dad always had an obsession with firecrackers. He was blowing stuff up his Goularty. And I didn't really, I thought it was a good idea. But man, when you get on the set for the first time and you're in a tiny little set like this.

And one of those, that first firecracker goes off and everybody jumps. And it's so fucking loud. That's when I thought, this might be pretty good. It's a comic scene yeah even when he gets when he starts that the weird thing is the guy he's based on eddie nash is there's no way to make that guy funny right you know but somehow or another between that little japanese kid yeah and and alfred molina with his robe flying open and his half a feminine disposition yeah was completely comedic. Yeah.

But the true story of that guy was menacing, man. Yeah, no, it went dark very fast. Read that Rolling Stone article. Oh, my God. Yeah. It is weird. You made it. It is lighthearted, dude.

It's still kind of uplifting. Well, you know. But I found shortcuts uplifting. I'm a freak. I thought shortcuts was like a celebration of lifestyle yeah yeah i yeah i and i have i have the same feeling i mean look if you can get out with a low body count it's uplifting i suppose you watch 70 did you have when was the last time you watched freebie and the bean do you realize how many fucking people

went down like you know in 70s comedies like those weird buddy cop you know movies i don't know when they stopped killing people but they certainly didn't give a shit in the 70s no they didn't i mean well they didn't up up until the late 80s when when mel gibson was running around killing people and leaf the weapon i mean they really there was the higher the body count the better and those you're just laughing through it no i know weird i know and also i noticed in Magnolia that the one thing that stands out in my mind

is you zoomed in on a Freemasons ring. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And I'm like, that's it. It's there. Yeah.

Why do you do that? Now I'm all fucked up. Yeah. Ricky J had a Freemasons ring on. That's absolutely right. And he says, we met upon a level, but we're parting on a square.

What is, you were in such deep grief. Obviously, you were going into very dark places. Well, that, you know, blame Michael Penn for that. He's the one who got me on all that stuff. Oh, really? I lent him a couple of my Freemason books. So, really? He's way in deep with all that stuff.

And he's obsessed. Yeah, still? I don't know, but I can't imagine that it was an obsession or an addiction that went away. I think it was not just the passing fancy. Punch Drunk Love. All right, what was that movie about? Love, baby. Love.

Yeah? That was a love story, yeah. But for me, that that movie that was one of those ones where i walked out i'm like what the fuck is that what is he doing so uh-huh yeah i could see that reaction for sure after magnolia i'm like what what happened go from robert altman toffaut? What is that movie? That's just a movie about falling in love. I mean, that was just a way, honestly, that was, I remember that movie being like, we'd made two movies in a row and we'd gotten pretty good at it and felt like we had the job and

just wanted to dismantle how you had worked before. And I didn't know what that meant. Dismantle how who had worked before? All of didn't know what that meant. This meant who had worked before. All of us on the crew. Sandler? Maybe Sandler was part of that too. Why Sandler? I love him.

Yeah? I love him. Yeah? I loved the movies that he was making at that time. Like Happy Madison? Happy Gilmore. Happy Gilmore. Billy Madison.

Billy Madison. And Big Daddy. Those are the big three? Those are my big three, yeah. So what was your idea for him? Just to work with him, period. Yeah. But Adam would always do something in movies that I basically just stole, where when he

would flip out, it appeared to me to be a guy who was really flipping out and who wasn't faking it. Right. And that there was a darkness, and who you know not wasn't faking it right and that there was a darkness and it was so exciting when he would flip out yeah that when he really did go there you couldn't see the whites of his eyes anymore and that was exciting and you know you've got to know coming from that world of comedians that they are the darkest of the dark there's some anger there oh man yeah and i just love that and adam makes me laugh and he kind of can move and physically he kind of waddle around and stuff yeah just love him so you wanted to place that tone or that energy into a real framework yeah

in a way yeah and let him be the comedic character he is but but to be treated as if he were a real person. Well, yeah, I mean, I think I remember at some, I think... Like if somebody really yelled like that. Right, right, right. Try to treat it in a real-life situation. Like, what does it really feel like to have seven sisters that are that domineering and that tough on you? But I remember very...

I think Adam had the feeling, wait, am I supposed to change what i do because you make these kinds of movies and i make these kinds of movies and it was the opposite it wasn't like it was no my my movie's coming to you you know it's not that you're coming to me i mean that was like clear i was not like i i want to get into this with you so that we can really you know yeah find the darker part. Or shit like that. It's so funny because people's idea of you precedes you. It's sort of like, oh, man, this guy is like deep and fucking, he's a big, big thinker.

Makes these movies. What am I going to do? What does he want from me? Why me? Adam saw Magnolia and he's like, do you want me to do that? No, man, I don't want you to do that. He said that? Yes, he did.

He said, because I can't do that. If nothing specific, just the entire movie? Exactly right. Do you want me to do that? Exactly. That's fucking hilarious. What movies informed that movie for you? What were you trying to do there?

Those Fred Astaire, Ginger Roger movies. Really? Yeah, because they were a guy and a girl. They were musical. And they were 90 minutes. The girl always had a nice flowing dress on. And I was just obsessed with those at the time. And coming out of Magnolia, man, I swear,

getting through magnolia all that i could do to keep my head above water was to watch adams movies was to watch musicals musicals that's what they were invented for to but it was for the country to get out of the depression they fucking work i mean they still and they've got a long shelf life i mean you know you feel bad about yourself throw one one of those on, you know. Really? Absolutely. It's a happy pill for me. Just watch Fred Astaire dance? Fred and Ginger? If that doesn't make you happy, you better see your doctor.

Something wrong with you. Yeah. But you do seek that out in film? That's your medicine? Absolutely. I mean, you know, look, if I've got a row of movies at home and you, you know, sit down on the couch to watch something and there's the dark long intelligent movies over here and then there's the lighter ones over here my hand is always going to go over here and put those on yeah for sure that's the stuff i listen to what um what now when did you first i'm trying to figure it out oh yeah so you work with philip seymour hoffman all in all three of those first movies. Yeah.

All the way through. We did five movies, I think. So you guys came up together, really. Where did you first meet him? Yeah, he'd started before me. He'd been around. By starting out, we all kind of started out together. It was Riley or Phil, but they had a little bit more of a resume underneath them. Right.

Which was really helpful. Even if they made four or five films, that was more than I'd done. Right. So when we were starting out, they had my back and they were really helpful just in from like, that's where craft service is to the simplest things through just having a few movies under your belt makes a big difference. Sure. But Phil was like, he maybe had a long list of kind of not so great movies, but he would always be the best thing in it.

So you just liked him? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, early on. I mean, obviously, as time went on. But as an actor, you thought when you cast him in Heartache and in Boogie Nights, you were like, you know, this guy's it.

I thought that when I saw him for the first time in Scent of a Woman that I just knew what true love was. I knew what love at first sight was, and it was the strangest feeling sitting in a movie theater thinking, he's for me and I'm for him. And that was it. Really? Yeah. Strange.

But that's... Believe me, when I was a kid, you sort of draw out yourself from movie cameras and sets. Just like eight, nine years old and nowhere in it did I draw anything that looked like him. I always thought I'd have like Cary Grant would be in my movie, Harrison Ford. Right. But something happened when I saw him. Really? Yeah.

That's beautiful. How important is the actor to you? That's number one and everything else underneath. Not everybody thinks like that, I don't think. I'd be curious to hear what other people's number one is. I mean, you know, not that we're making lists and stuff stuff but what else do you look at when you look at a movie yeah you know i don't really want to look at anything else but i think it's interesting as movie making becomes more sort of high tech and distant and you know that that you know the actual physical organic idea of the actor

or of the body becomes less and less important. You're onto something there. And look, I'm not saying that it can't be a pain in the ass to try to figure out things with an actor. I mean, it can be. But that's part of the struggle. That's what makes a film organic. Yeah.

And I can see people not having patience for that, but I love it. Yeah. I love it. I love working on it with them. Well, I'm sorry for your loss, certainly, with Phil. It was horrible. So let's go to There Will Be Blood.

Let's go to the callers. Yeah. First caller. Man, I thought Boogie Nights was great, man. His dick was big. All right, next caller. Hey, when you were doing boogie nights, did you fuck that guy? All right, next caller.

It's got to be like Russian roulette going to those calls, right? I haven't done that in a long time. All right, so okay, so There Will Be Blood comes out right alongside of No Country for Old Men. Yeah. These are the two big dick movies. Yeah, yeah. These were like man movies. Yeah.

Yeah. Those big, yeah. Big cocks. Those two movies. Who's cocks bigger in this Western game? This is showdown. I think theirs were bigger. I think it ended up being that way what with the

oscar at the old oscar were you bitter no i was i mean it's a fucking difficult to get any and i did not personally get the movie daniel day got yeah he got the one and robert also at the cinematographer got one but i tell you man it is hard to keep a fucking phony smile on for three hours when they get that camera on you and you kind of go like... I don't know. Like, I used to, you know, I used to just tune in to see how actors handled the disappointment. Right. Like, where they're just zooming in on, like, who gets it and who doesn't.

And then you see, like, they read the name, just like... I mean, a fake smile is a tough thing to do. Did you know you were going down? Yeah. You did? Yeah, yeah. I mean, yeah, the writing was on the wall that we weren't going to be up there on the big one. I watched both of those movies several times.

There's no reason to compare the two movies. It's fucking nuts. It's ridiculous. I mean, it's... Most of the time, there's no reason to compare anything. It's just what the culture does. It's a drag when it gets turned into sport. All right, so again, let's do this again. What was that movie about? No Country for Old Men. It's just what the culture does. It's a drag when it gets turned into sport.

All right. So again, let's do this again. What was that movie about? No Country for Old Men. I know what that was about. What was your movie about? Man, that's about oil. That's about black gold, Texas tea.

It's about, that's about, that's probably, again, family. Can I say that again i mean what about power power it's about california yeah i suppose i mean you get you hopefully start small and then if it gets bigger from there it's i look at it i look at that i just think about that movie and i think about daniel and his boy that's what i think about most that relationship yeah what would you call that relationship complicated yeah it's definitely complicated it's not his boy it's not his boy it does feel like there's a there's a component of uh mutual beneficial uh sure behavior or what have you but you know i also think it's a generational thing, too. It's not a story I made up. Guys born of that era, silver miners or some kind of miners,

coming west, working in those conditions, stealing themselves up to the environment and what's going on, and really creating families and having no room for those families, I mean, at all. But also creating this weird empire. Like the fact that, didn't that movie open in the hole? Yeah. Like to me that was genius. You know, this is just a dude in a hole with some tools.

Yeah, and ambition. Right. Mm-hmm. Was that the image that started the movie for you? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because I'd read stories of these guys that were silver prospectors, and it was that simple. And I kept having to read multiple books just to find out,

is this this simple that you take a pickaxe down to these holes, and you chip away, and then maybe when you find something, you stick dynamite in there, and you try to blow it up so you can get even further into this thing. There's the blowing up again. There's your dad again. Blowing shit up. Well, you got to have production value when you make a movie.

Sure. We usually don't, you know. So the answer is yes. You go chip away. You chip away. And then you blow some shit up. Blow some shit up. There's more of it in there.

Exactly. It's that bonkers you know and then you know you wonder why this guy's not the best dad in the world i don't know but also just the the the politics of power and the idea of amassing power and then the idea of amassing wealth like Like, you know, whatever happened in that hole in that moment, you know, that guy, whatever his ambition was, you know, became very calculating and very, you know, empire-minded fairly quickly, it seemed. Yeah, I mean... As it happened naturally.

Well, what's the difference between, you know, survival and ambition you know i mean he wasn't it wasn't just him trying to survive obviously he was obviously this guy those kinds of guys that they were born with something above and beyond what most people have which is just how do i survive and how do i make something for myself and something for my family and when it sort of blossoms into something much more intense well yeah you feel like there was never enough there was never going to be you know i don't know many billionaires but i kind of guess that a billion is not enough for him probably well that was interesting like the you know the sort of the the agreement between the godless and and and the the faithful or the leader of the faith.

Paul Dano. Paul Dano. The agreement, like it was some struck bargain. But there's this idea where it's sort of like, I know what you're up to and you know what I'm up to. Yeah. I'm the preacher. You're the dude with the money.

I got your people. I'm the one talking to your employees. So we have to have an understanding yeah anytime you can kind of narrow it down to something akin to tom and jerry or any any kind of that kind of spy versus spy thing that's always when it seems to be good when that movie i like them when it's firing that way you know when it's really just that these two knuckleheads hammering out agreements amongst each other it's great you see it as a comedy you know funny enough i i i i wouldn't say with a capital k but i do think it's a funny movie i i thought me laugh yeah and well there's definitely some funny moments in it but i thought that the the the story of the false brother that that because like you're dealing. Because you're dealing with the birth of American industry

on some level, that part of the American industry. And the hustle is part of that. So the con man is part of that. So you're dealing with the con man and the preacher. You're dealing with the con man and the brother. And the only guy that's a straight shooter is the guy that's going to own the world.

And he understands the need for these two or what's making them tick. But one of them's got to die and the other one's necessary. So, you're American. That's all of it. That's politics. That's everything. And then, like, you shot big, man. I mean, that must have been on your mind.

How do you fucking make a frame big enough to capture that land? And the thing that i thought was genius that you did was there were these shots where you just saw two guys over there and then there's a dude just kind of over there and then maybe another guy right there but nothing else well you know take a camera out into the west texas desert i mean you're from new mexico you know you get out there you you look like you're making an epic and you look like you know what you're doing if you just have a camera in the right spot. Right. Because it just looks gigantic.

Yeah. And if you just place people in the right spot, there's your perspective. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I loved it. All right. The master. I go to the movie theater.

I watch it. I'm like, God damn it. He did it again! I gotta go see it again! So then I go see it like three more times. And what I said publicly on this show is I think it would have been a better movie if they just fucked. You know, that is good criticism, I have to say. It's true, but you're onto something, you're not wrong. You know, you're not wrong.

And that's probably why it's a bit irritating is because you just want them to fucking start making out and get together. Yeah. No, I'm well aware. I think that probably would have made it. What was that relationship inspired by? I mean, what's that movie about to you is that a romance yeah it is you know but a romance that can't work just looking in somebody's eyes and thinking i know we're meant to be but we can't be you know and that quite simply just that

because there's a couple moments in that movie that i thought was amazing that you know even just reflecting on the idea of scientology and you know knowing fairly quickly that that movie was not about scientology right yeah uh whether you know how much it was based on him or not it was obviously based on hubbard to some degree but it was very quickly not about that but the intimacy of the cultural landscape uh in that movie in terms of like people being vulnerable to that yeah and and the way there was an innocence to how these meetings transpired yeah yeah it's yeah good if it feels innocent that's good because i mean you got you got all these people running around i mean you're flashing me back you know this kind of like all these new ideas i mean nothing's that weird you know nothing's that

weird i mean there's death and destruction right behind you from that war. I mean, everybody's looking around like, give me anything. Yoga, diet, past lives, I'll take it. We've just been annihilated. Help me out. We won, but we... Right. Yeah. Ugly time.

Yeah. Nasty. But, you know, I mean, look, I guess that's still happening today. I mean, look, you know. Well, that's not different than the 70s in a way. I mean, it's not different if you're looking at it like that than Inherent Vice culturally. But I thought there was some amazing stuff in, you know, what they got from each other. Because, you know, when you deal with these relationships where you have the guy that's all hard and all crazy and can't manage his shit. You know, and they're not destined

to be the leader of anything. But leaders feed on them. Leaders take from them. Leaders use them, you know, as their heart. You know, but the fragile one is always going to blow up. Yeah, yeah. And that dynamic is, I think, historical. But there was a moment, though, that I thought was,

maybe if you can recollect it for me, because I can't quite put my finger on it, there was a moment where Lord Dern asks him why he changed something in the book. Right, yeah, yeah. He changes the phrasing from can you recall to can you imagine. See, that scene for me is the key to the whole fucking movie.

Because that opens it up from it's no longer a self-help situation. Right, exactly. It's a religion. Right. And he knew that. I mean, that's pretty accurately, that's taken from Hubbard's life. So that interchange where a woman named Helen O'Brien had really sort of, she recognized that moment instantly and just said, this is going down a bad path and it's going to change. I thought that was the most important moment in the movie.

Yeah, it's good. Was it to you? No, I don't think of that. When I think back to the most important moment of the movie, I think of the two of them sitting across the desk from each other. On the boat? No, at the end. Oh, right.

At the end. When he sings to him? When he sings to him. When he sings, you know, just... That's where you just want him to kiss. Just kiss. Yeah. Why can't you guys just...

I know. I know. I know. I know. Why'd you get so hung up with all that weird concocting of weird alcohol? What, the booze? Yeah. The poison?

Yeah. Too many shots of the poison? No, I liked it. I don't have any problem with the length of that. I loved that idea of somebody making booze out of paint thinner and all this stuff. You're basically just left over from those guys in the war that were getting into bombs and stuff like that. all this stuff. You're basically just left over from those guys in the war

that were, you know, getting into bombs and stuff like that. And that once you had a taste for that, you know, paint thinner, you know, or rubbing alcohol was what you needed.

It was like a beer. What do you think that guy meant to that guy? What do you think that guy meant to Philip Seymour Hoffman's character? Because, I mean, there was this whole idea that there was this weird tension

and this love and then he had Amy Adams like pulling out his cock strings, you know, really kind of making him the man that he is on some level i think you know i i i you can see it in in phil's eyes that he's looking at these i want to be like you right i want to run wild like you that's what i want get me out of here right yeah yeah and because he can't that's what everything that's why he's awesome because he can't he's also i don't's why... But he's also... Because he can't... He's also... I don't know.

It becomes complicated. He's setting traps for him, but he's not really... It gets dark. It gets dense. You're talking about it like you had nothing to do with it. Yeah. I mean, you know what? I'm talking about it like it's a distant memory, I think, to me now. Not distant, but I'm trying to recollect it in my mind.

I mean, I haven't seen it in a while, and it's not been at the forefront. Have you rethought it at all? No. Happy with it? Oh, yeah. It's great. It looks good. Yeah, it looks good.

Big camera. Yeah. Fucking big as this room. You're shooting on a big camera. Yeah. Paid off, right? It makes you feel like a big man when you get a big camera. Sure.

It does pay off. Did you use it on there will uh there will be blood as well no no that was the first time you what that was 70 millimeters we were doing tests and we were messing around and we couldn't get i just had something in my mind about how it would look and panavision they were just they said what about dusting these off i said let's do it who said that a camera And meanwhile, you know- I want to work again. Producers all around me dropping to the floor going, no, put that thing away. Weren't those destroyed?

Exactly right. These are gross licorices. You don't want one. Oh, those aren't your- No, no, no. That's the replacement. Apparently- Here, I like-

Oh, you're off. You're off. Yeah, I'm off. I ordered these weird licorices from Italy, and then I read the black licorice. There's a side effect. Could create hypertension and high blood pressure. The one thing I don't have. Black licorice?

Yeah. It's weird. There's a warning on it. Whatever. All right. So I think he did a great job with this pension thing. Thank you. Were you in touch with him?

Who? Just be honest. I can't be honest. I'm not going to be honest. I'm not. No. I don't. I'm going going to be honest. I'm not. No, I don't. I'm going to just say no.

No. Why? Somebody spent a long time, you know, saying keep me out of it. So I'm keeping out of it. I mean, really, just out of pure, pure respect and everything. It just doesn't matter. I'm not going to, you know. Well, that's fine.

Fuck. Come on. No, but I mean, he gave you his blessing. He gave me his blessing to make the film. Yeah. And you wrote the script entirely on your own. Yeah. From the book.

Yeah. He didn't have a draft? No, no, God, no. I mean, no. He, you know, if you've read the book, I mean, if you can't, there's so much material in there. It's like if you can't figure it out with what you've got in this book, then you're an idiot.

But no, but no one has really done it with his books. Right. What I meant to say by that was that there's so much material that it doesn't you know that it's if you dig it out it's there but you tried to you tried to to cut a broad path here with that like i mean you tried to get as much in as possible for sure yeah i mean. Because that's honoring. Yeah. I mean, I wrote, my sister usually reads things after I write them. And I had a draft that was about three, four, five inches thick. Yeah. And I gave it to her and she handed it right back. And she said, I'm not reading this.

Cut this thing down. Come back to me when you cut it down. That that's good advice. Let me go back to me when you cut it down. That's good advice. Let me go back to the drawing board. Well, what's this movie about? It's about Pinchon. It's about... That's interesting.

It is about him. Yeah. I mean, that's the first thing that pops into my mind. And then followed really quick right behind that, it's about the ex-old lady that you may have or I may have or we all may have who does it for you, who still kind of has you wrapped around her finger, that kind of thing that you can never shake. It certainly lands there at the end after quite a journey. But in that process, though, what I started to realize, like there's something stuck in my, not stuck in my crotch about it,

because I took to that movie quickly and I liked it. Yeah. Because I like the language of it. I like the era of it. I like that, you know, you're dealing with a guy that knows that terrain, that invented that type of writing. Yeah. And that, you know, has the sort of gravitas as a voice to play with those levels of politics and

culture and, and, and deal with stuff like, like the politics of heroin, the politics of, of late 60s subversion, the politics of, of the provocateur,

the guy who gets, you know, has to sell himself out to get off his, to kick a habit. I liked all that language. I like the way heroin was talked about. I like the sort of weird transition from that time when the hippies took over the culture and the resistance of the old guard to sort of get online, all coming through that one character that Josh Brolin plays.

And he's clearly a comedic character that is crazy and doesn't even understand why he's crazy you know and like the thing i liked about this movie is that it weaves in and out of hallucinatory feeling that like you know what is real what isn't real and doesn't matter ultimately yeah did you feel that yeah i did i mean i felt that way when i read the book for sure you know um and then tried to do that in the movie so i got that for sure um yeah in that in that in that in that fog of i mean i'm not a stoner i don't really get stoned but that kind of thinking that you can do in that state where you do feel like your mind opens up and you're actually seeing things a little bit clearer but that right around the

corner you are in a full-blown paranoid flip out right well that was that time and that time and that was nixon that yeah i mean i wasn't around so i'm just kind of based you felt that from the book and i yeah and i feel it from people that were there and that thing it's funny because there's a little bit of this when you're talking to chrissy heinz and you mentioned is that that kind of again any shift is always good from smoking dope to suddenly look around there's heroin on the streets it's like man this is not going to end good this is not going to end well you know and that again a loss of a certain type of innocence you know that just seems to be good fertile ground for

a story and that seemed to be his preoccupation you know like when everything just sort of starts to get dark when it was going along so well um and i think about the book that i look about like so much i hope we got a little bit in there it's just how painful that still is obviously to him as a writer you know i mean he'd be 70 something years old and look back and write you know he could write about anything but he's still looking back on fucking it slipped away away. they took something from us. Yeah. Something got taken.

Yeah. It's, you know, it doesn't feel good still. And then we get like one of the greatest cameos in the world from Martin Short. Yeah.

What? Yeah. It reminded me of this frenetic, there's a frenetic type of satire that like, you don't see it very often. Remember that movie, did you ever see that movie,

Walker? Yes. Yes. Yes. Okay. Walker is a great film. By Alex Cox. By Alex Cox, I sure do. Yeah.

Yeah. There was elements of that type of brutal, satiric characters. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's, man, you're talking my language. That's stuff I love when things get like that. Do you remember the Rodney Dangerfield sequence in natural born killers yeah sure sure that's that that's great you know look that's like any you know that sequence lends itself to being able to

do something like that having martin short you know having him being able to have martin short and say you know he's got a scene where he's his secretary comes to get him and says come on there's a problem with the couch in your office and to be able to say to martin short you know he's got a scene where he's his secretary comes to get him and says come on there's a problem with the couch in your office and to be able to say to him aren't sure you know what if you just drop your drawers on the way out and getting to that level of of vaudeville right and still kind of hopefully stay within reason i mean that's just like food and drink to me it's great because you were able to do it with josh brolin too whose character definitely tipped you know like you're like what you know with the you know and you know you held a long time on that banana bro you know most of the times you spend as a movie director saying smaller and this book and this movie lent itself to saying bigger which is a really exciting place i think you really nailed

it and i and i don't think it was an easy thing because you're dealing with, you know, these layers of consciousness. You're dealing with, you know, going in and out of reality, not reality. Arguably the entire film is, you know, outside of the bookends could be just not real. And it doesn't matter. But you're playing with like that whole pension world

of like, you know, who's on whose side, who's in charge's in charge what's the power structure you know who's got the secret keys who knows what about who and you go through all these doors and when you finally see the the one dude that is supposed to you know be the thing we're looking for you don't even give a shit that's right where you know you gotta get on you gotta start stumping for this film you talk about it better than I do and you that's pinch on man

I mean this is what you know I definitely feel good here because I didn't come up with this stuff I just I just

ushered it ushered it into the movie you honored it yeah you know and I you know

because you know when you do you don't think I think that I don't think that people have seen movies like that. It's almost like, it's like David O. Russell's I Heart Huckabees.

Yeah. That, you know, when you have elements of farce or burlesque or vaudeville or, you know, I'm not even going to go surrealism because it's not that. It's not, it's not, it's not catch 22, but there are elements of that in it because he comes from a similar sensibility and a similar time as Heller. Yeah. because he comes from a similar sensibility and a similar time as Heller. Yeah. But there is this idea where you have to suspend, not so much disbelief,

but you realize there's enough reality there. Well, I think that's the trick, is that you never feel like this is just some insane product of his imagination. Right. You always feel that something is plausible and rooted in reality. And I think if you look at this movie, this book,

it's not in anything that he's made up. He's obviously riffing on something that is down as fact. Well, I think that's exactly what you're talking about with Pynchon and with these guys that lived through that. That is the thing that sticks in their craw, is that this stuff, no one ever found out about it. Right. It just went away.

And I think one of the things you're up against also is pensions relevance you know culturally now it's like you're reintroducing or introducing for the first time you know one of the great literary geniuses who you know i mean you know people young people today unless they're really sort of like locked in or tapped in and they want to know about this stuff they're like what and you know if you come to this movie without any real awareness of the backstory of Pynchon or the beauty of the transition from the 60s to the 70s, and you're just looking at it as some camp fashion show. Right, right.

You've got to be invested in this. Absolutely. The funny thing is, I've only read his new book once, and I need to get to it again. But it's about computers. It's about the Internet. It's called Bleeding Edge. I don't know if you've read it yet.

I haven't read a lot of his books. Crying All Out 49 was enough for me. But the point is that, you know, he has all these email hackings and all this stuff that's going on and everything, and here he was a couple years ago. He knows things that we don't know. I'm convinced of it. I mean, I really am at this point.

Pension does. Yeah. I'm just convinced. Well, good. Then he's got you. He does. I'm hooked. Yeah, you're going to have to...

I'm in the cult. Yeah, well, it's not so much a cult. It's like, you know, it's sort of like, what if there is no there there? And, you know, and all his, you know, his characters and this whole thing, what you said earlier is like, there's a guy. You know, there's a guy. Yeah. You got some great performances out of a lot of great actors.

I'll tell you that. Thanks. Yeah. I hadn't seen Benicio Del Toro in a long time. Man, the movie screens and the world need more Benicio Del Toro up there.

Why don't we see him more? You know, he's got another movie coming out. You know what? Being an actor is tough business and you can have success and you can be one of the best, but you would be shocked to think,

you know, it's a struggle to find would be shocked to think you know it's a struggle to find good parts to find yeah people who work you got joanna newsom and something doing something new yeah she's great she was great and who was the woman that played the ex-old lady catherine waterston oh i don't know her i hadn't seen her before i like her she's sort of new to movies she's done a few smaller parts here and there but she does new york theater stuff but she's she's pretty new to the the big screen yeah you got a lot of there was a lot of great uh a lot of great interactions i like this weird kind of like half silent sidekick too oh dean denis yeah he's great this is his first movie oh and reese witherspoon i fucking love her me too me too get in line get in line i know but

it's weird because i feel like some people don't really love her and they should love her everybody should love her yeah those are those are the kind the kind, then that's thumbs down for me. If you don't love Reese Witherspoon. Yeah, what kind of fucking animal are you? You've got a problem. She's great. Yeah. No, she's dynamite.

She's the business, Reese Witherspoon. Yeah. Always has been to me. I love her. This is the first time you worked with her? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, there was a second she was going to try to be Phil's wife and the master

but that didn't work out because of timing and everything else. So you got to work did you get along with her? Amy's great, yeah. I loved Reese and I loved Amy.

I love all these dames. I mean working with these girls man it's a good good group of girls on this movie. Yeah. Jenna Malone

Dynamite and Hong Chao is great. She's great. Yeah. It's a long list and they're all just yeah dynamite and this young and hong chao is great she's great just yeah yeah it's a long list and they're all just been dynamite to work with and joaquin is just great it's great sometimes it's sort of like oh no he's talking like joaquin and there's a lot of information we need so he's gonna have to get that out of his mouth i'm gonna have to rewind this when I get it on DVD. He is a mumbler. Yeah.

For sure. He does a really wonderful thing. He's got this big scene with Martin Donovan where they're sitting across the table and they're making the transaction about getting Coy Harlan away from his family. And he enunciates every last word. And I just remember thinking, well, he can do it if he wants to. He just chooses not to i guess he likes to mumble he's a fucking mumbler for sure josh brolin though is great josh brolin is like a part of a dying breed he just is a man he looks like a man and he acts like a man and he's a great

actor and he's funny and he's so funny um he's very fun to work with as well um i i can't say enough about josh brolin he's great i mean you know there was a time when i remember feeling like where where are the men in movies you know and um there's josh brolin working steady and getting good jobs astounding yeah. Yeah. And like in the real deal too. Like not just like a good looking dude, but like got real chops and real range. Yes. Like just fucking awesome. Yeah.

Like you could pluck him out of it. You could put him in a 40s movie, put him in a 50s movie. He's like kind of, there's something timeless. Yeah. Owen Wilson was great. Hadn't seen him in a while. Yeah. Owen Wilson, man.

I love Owen Wilson. And then who, like that story becomes the story. And I don't want to spoil anything. Like it's possible to spoil anything. Yeah, I don, man. I love Owen Wilson. And that story becomes the story. And I don't want to spoil anything. Like, it's possible. Yeah, I don't think you can. This movie is an annihilation of stories because there's a thousand stories in the movie. I mean, that's what Pension's all about.

Every sentence is a portal. And that's the fun of it, man. I mean, I know that it can be maddening, I think, for people, but boy. I didn't experience it. I've talked to other people that were sort of like, had like a rough time with it. Right. Because like, it requires an attention.

And like, even as books, you know, you have to sort of like, sometimes you gotta go back a few pages. Oh shit, this is the, all right, all right, that's the boat from, okay, okay, all right, and that guy's, okay, okay. Right, yeah. And it's harder to do with a movie. Yes. Because it happens very quickly. Right. Yeah. And it's harder to do with a movie. Yes. Because it happens very quickly.

Yeah. So... Yeah. And you know, when you're with a book, it's kind of you alone in your room and it's intimate and it's right there and movies are big and... Just tell me one thing. Uh-huh. What did Pynchon think of it?

I'm still waiting for that phone call, man. I don't know. I mean, shit. You are becoming a pension character. That's what you're doing right now. You know. You know. No, I don't.

You know. Oh, fuck it. I'm not going to kill you, fucking. What? I'm not going to hurt the guy's myth. I'm not even pressing you for secret information. I just want to know how he felt about it. I can only imagine that he's happy, you know?

I mean, I think we did a good job. I mean, that's, I mean. Look, fuck. I don't know. Look, fuck. I don't know. Look at you wrestling with yourself. What are you protecting?

Oh, you got me all... I think I'm all bashful and stuff. Like red and red in the face. Did you guys have some sort of weird secret agreement yeah yeah we did I'm trying to fucking protect you

protect me do you know what could happen to you if I let you in on this you don't want this information oh okay man thanks buddy I appreciate that man beware the golden fang I don't want this information. Oh, okay, man. Thanks, buddy. You got just... I appreciate that, man.

Beware the golden fang. No. Yeah, fuck. What? What do you want to say? Nothing. I don't want to say anything. Oh, really?

What do you have? What are these? It's a guy from Walking Dead. He sent me them. That's cool. So you're not talking pension to protect me. That's fine. So you're not talking Pynchon to protect me. That's fine.

I appreciate that. Do you know the story that when they said the Unabomber, remember the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski? Yeah. And then for a while there was a serious thought that Thomas Pynchon was the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski. Yeah. He said, nice guess, keep keep trying that's pretty good i mean well i think you did him uh i think you did him uh a solid i think you you i mean you work fucking hard dude i mean you make big movies do you like when you're on set are you losing your fucking mind are you just cool as a cucumber?

It's a little bit of both. I mean, it depends. How do you keep the vision so tight? How do you keep the tone? They're so different, all these films. Do you use different cinematographers? Do you have a... Same cinematographer. You know what you do?

You cut out all the bad shit. But literally, the way the fucking movies look. Like, they were shot differently. I mean, you know, you're full of, like, you know, close-ups and, like, it feels almost handheld in this movie. You know, and, you know, it feels a little grainier than other movies. Definitely. So, you made those choices. Mm-hmm.

Well, you get into it and, you know, maybe you got a couple ideas in your head about how it might look, and you know what certain film stocks do, and you know what certain lenses do, so you start testing stuff and shooting stuff. I mean, we started shooting stuff with Joaquin at my house about three or four years ago. He had a beard, and he shaved it into that thing, and he came over one afternoon, and I shot some stuff.

And I shot some stuff with some old film that I had in my garage like garage like this that was like out in the heat and I used that old film and when we looked at it back it looked kind of like the movie you see which is like you stumble into some you maybe you got a few ideas maybe you've seen a movie that looks like this or a photograph. But really bridging that distance between a kind of half an idea and a real idea. You shot that on film? Yeah. Oh, so that's why. Well, that's one why.

But, you know, the other why was sort of getting this old film and it kind of looks faded and it's broken. And you look at it up on the big screen at the lab and you go, well, our job is to kind of start making stuff look like that. How'd you do it? You get old lenses and you kind of expose it a certain way you pick the right locations and costumes and you mix everything up and time travel with the actual machines that's quite honestly that's what you try and do you try time travel it's the closest you're gonna get to time travel is but you got to use the old machines. Yeah. It helps. It's a leg up for sure.

Using old gear is definitely a leg up. And you put your wife in there for a few scenes. Yeah. She was lucky to get the job. She's funny. Made her audition. Oh, good for you. You don't want to give anyone a break.

But right at the get-go, we just have to suspend our disbelief that this is a PI that's got a doctor's office. Yeah. That's a pension thing. We were just supposed to take that at face value? I think so. You made the movie. Yeah. You're just sort of like, I'm just going to honor this.

He did a lot of explaining about that situation in the book, that basically this guy, Dr. Buddy Tubeside, whose office of those b12 like a dr feel good right sure and so he's usually got a line of uh of of speed freaks waiting out front of his office every morning to get right and then doc has i i think in the book doc has done buddy tube side a favor or two and he said you can have a room in the back okay but you didn't feel the need for that backstory you know we actually shot some of that stuff uh early on and it just it was just too much shoe leather trying to explain all this stuff so you're just like fuck it fuck it the pi's in a dot well i think that's because i think that introduces the idea of what is our reality and and you thought that too yeah i think it's exactly right you know you just kind of gotta of got to, and you got to do that, do that, some of that stuff early. So it'll help, you know, either people go with it or they won't. Yeah, yeah.

I loved it, man. And I think you do great work. And I've come around to all the movies. Some I liked right out of the gate. Some I had a fight with. It sounds like in Heron Fights you liked right out of the gate. Right out of the gate. Right out of the gate.

And I liked Magnolia right out of the gate, but I thought that it could be a little shorter. Boogie Nights, actually, I grew to like more. I liked it when I saw it first, but that actually gets better over time. Right. For some reason. Because it's a... I don't know why. And that's a good thing with the movies.

The Master, I'm probably going to have to watch once a year. Because clearly you don't understand your own movie and i'm just gonna have to lay it on my own interpretation but i think that's true though i imagine a lot of that shit gets laid on you like you're a fucking genius what do you mean by that i don't know it's not my responsibility is it right yeah some of that some sometimes that but that just means people are looking at it in a way that's intense and i know that feeling you know that's you know you look at films and but you know that's the fucking great things about movies i my favorite movie of all time is treasure sierra madre which i must have seen yeah five or six times and thought okay yeah and then whatever it was, when I came across it

at just the right time, at just the right moment, and I went, holy shit, and my life opened up. I thought, this is the best movie I've ever seen. And that's when I was writing There Will Be Blood.

I just watched it over and over and over again. So whatever, these things, these movies, they're like, I do consider them, they're movable feasts. In other words, you catch it on an airplane, catch it on your phone. Where are you going to see it?

It's out there and it exists and it's going to be something different all the time. But I think that's a movie that, not unlike Pension or not unlike a great piece of literature, that as you evolve, or music, when you go back to it, it speaks to you differently. Absolutely. Yeah. And The Treasure of Siam Madre, what was it about the repetition of that? What kept hammering at you?

I don't know. I mean, it wasn't as if I was watching it going, I don't get this. I'd seen it, and I kind of liked it, but it didn't... The end? The shot of the bags? The shot of the bags.

It's great. You know... Do you like the end of The Killing? I love the... I was just talking about the end of The shot of the bags? The shot of the bags. It's great. Do you like the end of the killing? I love the end. I was just talking about the end of the killing. That's one of the great endings. You were just talking about that? I was just talking about that scene yesterday. To who?

To Riley. I was talking to Riley. John C. Riley? Yeah. I was working on this thing that he's working on, and I was talking with him about it. We were just talking about endings, and that one came up.

Sterling Hayden. Oh, my God. If I really could build a time machine, I'd go back, and I'd work with Sterling Hayden. He'd be at the top of the list. Great. Are you a big fan? Yeah.

Have you ever seen any of his great YouTube interviews sort of late in life? When he's got the beard? Yeah. When he's writing the books? Yeah. I don't think I have. Okay. Go see him?

If you want to stay up until 4 o'clock in the morning tonight, go check these out. I mean, they're great. Amazing. Well, he was sort of like tormented, right? Very tormented. Because of the McCarthy stuff. That's exactly right. Yeah.

And I keep them. There's a little bit. There's this character, B the mccarthy stuff that's exactly right yeah and i i keep them there's a little there's this character burke stodger in uh yeah that's referenced that i that i think i i can only guess pinch on might have had a not that but i thought the burke stodger character was the opposite it was the opposite but he was on a boat and he went out there i think he's adapted the sterling hayden thing a little bit it's a very different story yes because sterling hayden was deeply troubled the rest because he named names he named names he named names and if you you know getting into that whole naming name things not that we're going to i know we've run out of time but but man there's a little bit there's a lot there that's a great great subject and it gets a little bit short shrifted you see that

erwin winkler movie i did what was that called again? Guilty by Suspicion. That's good. There's a documentary that I'm in. I can't find it. I thought it was called Are You Now or Have You Ever Been? And I can't seem to find it. But there's a couple of good books written about it too. And just how the level of fear that was put into people and the kind of insane persecution where you kind of look back now and you go, really, was it that bad?

And to sort of investigate it a little bit is that I do think it was that bad. Well, it sounds to me like you're percolating a fucking movie about the blacklist. No, I got into the blacklist. I've always been into the blacklist, but through Inherent Feist,

there's so much about the blacklist and that character. It was just another excuse to read more about it did that character appear in this movie? Berks Dodger? yeah

on screen you see him at that Chris Skylight on Institute the loony bin that they go up to and they're showing

the hippies a clip from a black and white movie oh the movie right and the guy's mouthing along exactly right yeah

that guy that actor in that is meant to be Berks Dodger, but it's an actor named Jack Kelly. But Berks Dodger was accused to be a communist. Yeah. And then he completely flipped. And he went completely pro-American. Exactly. He splits down and he comes back miraculously.

The boat is renamed. I forgot that part. Yeah. That's the one that's- I gotta go see the movie again. All right. What's the next movie? What are we doing? What are you doing? I don't know. I forgot that part. Like, that's the one that's... I gotta go see the movie again. All right, what's the next movie? What are we doing? What are you doing?

I don't know. I gotta figure that one out. Well, you still gotta run around with this one. I got a couple more months of running around. Or a month. Another month. Am I gonna get a screener? You should.

Do you want a Blu-ray? Sure. Can you hook me up? Yeah, I can. All right, we'll do that. Can you hook me up? Yeah, I can. All right.

We'll do that. I'm going to give you the movie. You can have my movie. Thanks, man. It's funny. You get through all this. You work on these movies, and then you really do. You get down.

You got a little DVD like this, and you go, here it is. That's all it is. Yeah, yeah. Fuck it. Go ahead. Do what you want with this. Exactly. That's it. I went through all that, and I got a DVD.. Yeah, yeah. Fuck it. Go ahead. Do what you want with this. Exactly. That's it.

I went through all that, and I got a DVD. All right, man. Thank you very much. Great talking to you. Are you kidding? I love you. Thanks for coming. Yeah, of course.

Love you, too. So there you have it. That was my conversation with Paul Thomas Anderson. What a great guy. I learned a lot. Fucking very accessible. He's a genius. And geniuses aren't supposed to be that affable. They're not supposed to be that, you know, humble and nice.

Conversational. You expect some difficulty with a genius. Not so with Mr. Anderson. Go see Inherent Vice. It's really spectacular. I found it very engaging. You're gonna have to see it a few times. I remember I told you I named my guitar, and I've never named

a guitar before, but I named my 335. That guitar is called The Buddha. And I just wanted to say that it will not be played out here in the garage. The Buddha stays in the big house with Daddy. Out here, the

Squire Jazz Master is what we play. Okay? For those of you keeping up. Boomer lives! It's hockey season, and you can get anything you need delivered with Uber Eats. Well, almost, almost anything. So, no, you can't get a nice rink on Uber Eats. But iced tea, ice cream, or just plain old ice? Yes, we deliver those.

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