Interview: "Boogie's Young Creator Had Plenty Of Homework To Do"

Detroit News, Written By Susan Stark
October 30th, 1997


Producer, director and screenwriter Paul Thomas Anderson was all of 7 years old in 1977, a vintage year for the porn film troupe whose '70s adventures and '80s misadventures he chronicles in Boogie Nights.

Yet Anderson says he has firsthand memories of the particular gestalt of the era in California's San Fernando Valley, where he grew up, where the film is set and where the porn industry still thrives.

"I remember how things looked," Anderson says by phone from Los Angeles. "And I can remember at 10 or 11 knowing how porno films looked. My dad was one of the first guys on the block to have a VCR."