Interview: People/AOL Transcript With Don Cheadle

People/AOL Chat Transcript: With Don Cheadle
November 17th, 1997


Quentin Tarantino, move over. The latest entry in the Cinematiste Enfant Terrible competition? Twenty-six year old Paul Thomas Anderson whose second film, Boogie Nights is now playing at a theater near you. Anderson began his career working as a production assistant on assorted television movies, videos and game shows in Los Angeles and New York. His first short film, Cigarettes and Coffee proved a hit at the 1993 Sundance Festival - allowing him to rework the concept into the feature-length Hard Eight , a strangely compassionate, character-driven story about hustlers in Nevada. Boogie Nights, Anderson's second movie, continues his fascination with people on the fringes. This time out his camera is focused on the mom-and-pop entrepreneurs of the adult film industry in Los Angeles circa late-seventies/early-eighties. Despite its controversial subject matter, the film has opened to rave reviews.

PEOPLE Online talked to Paul Thomas Anderson - as well as Don Cheadle who plays Buck in Boogie Nights - on November 17. Here's what the two of them had to say.