Interview: Washington Post

Paul Thomas Anderson on ‘The Master’ and going big for the wrong reason

By Ann Hornaday | September 21, 2012
Source: Washington Post

Perhaps the most useful way to describe “The Master,” Paul Thomas Anderson’s hotly anticipated film that opened Friday, is to say what it isn’t: It’s not a docudrama expose about the invention of Scientology, as many movie industry observers had assumed it would be. It’s not a sprawling study of a tribal subculture in the way that most of Anderson’s previous films — especially “Hard Eight,” “Boogie Nights” and “Magnolia” — have been. In fact, it’s not like any other movie currently in theaters. It’s a weird, often wonderful, occasionally confounding portrait of mid-20th century America that has garnered critical raves and festival awards but that just as likely will leave some viewers befuddled and bemused.

Talking to Anderson, who sat down for a brief interview after “The Master” made its North American debut at the Toronto International Film Festival, one gets the sense that even he isn’t entirely sure what he’s done with it. Soft-spoken and sweet-natured, the 42-year-old writer-director, hailed by many as the finest filmmaker of his generation, often stumbles for words as he talks about making his movie, which stars frequent Anderson rep player Philip Seymour Hoffman and Joaquin Phoenix in galvanizing performances.

Interview: "Sizing Up The Boogie Man"

Washington Post, Written By Michael Colton
October 19th, 1997


Hollywood Toasts Director and His Flick About Porn

The hottest young filmmaker in America -- scruffy, lanky Paul Thomas Anderson -- came to Washington recently in need of an aspirin and a nap. His film Boogie Nights had premiered the previous night to a thousand fans at the New York Film Festival, and the party afterward, he says, was "totally insane, like being at a rock concert."

He's earned this hangover. Call it hyperbole or Hollywood hype, but Boogie Nights is an epic of stardom, corruption and disco in the pornographic film industry circa 1980, has produced the greatest buzz since Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction shook up the crime genre three years ago. Critics compare Anderson to Scorsese and Spielberg; admirers whisper "Oscar" into the 27-year-old's ear.

All this for a movie about a guy with 13 inches of talent.

"It's one hundred percent real," Anderson says with a smirk, playfully denying the common knowledge that the film's star, Mark Wahlberg, sports a prosthesis for the film's most revealing scene. "That's why he got the part."

Anderson is no hairy-palmed, maladjusted porn freak, though he admits he must have been a little obsessed to make a 2 1/2-hour movie on the subject. However, like many males, he was once a hormonally energized teenager who liked to watch other people having sex on screen.

"Porn was endlessly fascinating to me," Anderson says. "Part of it was really sad and pathetic, but part of it was really funny. There's certainly a camp element to it."