Interview: "Boogie Might"

Toronto's Eye Magazine, Written By Alex Patterson
September ??, 1997


Director Paul Thomas Anderson gets down and dirty

Minutes before I'm due to call the director of the nostalgic comedy-drama Boogie Nights, a gaggle of Jesus freaks start some kind of revival meeting right outside my apartment. They are unbelievably noisy -- these folks may be doing God's work, but they're doing it with Satan's amps -- so I yell at them, "Lower the volume, damn it, I've got to talk with a guy who just made a movie about the porno business in the '70s!"

That guy's name is Paul Thomas Anderson, he's 26, and Boogie Nights is only his second feature. His noir-ish debut, Hard Eight, earned critical respect but sank without a trace earlier this year. But Boogie Nights won't be so easily ignored. Not only is it drenched with good old S-E-X, it features a star-making performance by Mark Wahlberg (the artist formerly known as Marky Mark) as a kid who makes it big by... well, making it big.