Interview: Mean Magazine

Interview: L.A. Times

Los Angeles Times, Written By Kenneth Turan
December 2007

An intense actor and director make for a fiery combination in 'Blood.'

"THERE Will Be Blood," the joint venture between actor Daniel Day-Lewis and director Paul Thomas Anderson, might be the most incendiary combination since the Molotov cocktail. Though it can be over the top and excessive, this morality play set in the early days of California's oil boom also creates considerable heat and light and does some serious aesthetic damage.

Interview: Indiewire

Indiewire, Written by Eugene Hernandez
December 24, 2007

iW PROFILE | "There Will Be Blood" Director Paul Thomas Anderson

Sitting down with indieWIRE earlier this month in New York City for a one-on-one conversation about "There Will Be Blood," the exceptional new film that dominated iW's 2007 film critics' poll, American auteur Paul Thomas Anderson caught a first glimpse of Upton Sinclair's re-issued 1920s novel, "Oil!" resting on a small table nearby. Examining the book's cover, he groused briefly about the need to place an image of Daniel Day-Lewis on the front of the book, explaining that he had intially hoped the promotional item could be re-released with that same simple cover that first caught his eye in a London bookstore years ago. Picking up the book back in Britain started him on the long journey to making his epic new film.

Sinclair's novel is at the core of "There Will Be Blood," its script loosely adapted by P.T. Anderson from essentially the book's first 150 pages or so. But, to flesh out his story about the emergence of a powerful California oil baron who f inds himself at odds with a skillful young preacher leading a growing congregation, Anderson spent years immersing himself in the history of oil in America, studying photographs and visiting numerous museums dedicated to the subject. He also relied on Margaret Leslie Davis' biography of infamous oil tycoon Edward Doheny, The Dark Side of Fortune. Anderson's rich story -- opening in limited release on Wednesday, Dec. 26th -- examines a dynamic intersection of oil and religion, family and greed, driven by capitalism and corruption. Connections to America one hundred years later are subtle but striking.

Interview: L.A. Times

Los Angeles Times, Written By (??)
December 2007

Prospectors Anderson and Day-Lewis strike black gold

PAUL THOMAS ANDERSON is one of a handful of auteurs who is actively evolving the cinematic language. Known for his nerve-jangling urban stories (set usually in the San Fernando Valley), his new film, "There Will Be Blood," is inspired by "Oil!," an Upton Sinclair novel about the burgeoning petroleum industry in turn-of-the-century California. To star in his first period piece, a dark, propulsive character study, Anderson landed Daniel Day-Lewis.

In a suite at the Four Seasons hotel in Beverly Hills to talk about the movie, which opens in Los Angeles on Dec. 26, the two notoriously media-shy artists are disarmingly loose and engaging. Day-Lewis, with shaggy, graying hair, golden hoops in his ears and tattoos covering his right arm, liberally interjects mischievous remarks into the conversation. Anderson is unshaven and rumpled, and radiates the youthful energy of someone who is still very much in love with film.

Interview: Daniel Day-Lewis & Paul Thomas Anderson

The Moving Image Source has made an Mp3 Interview featuring Daniel Day-Lewis and Paul Thomas Anderson on their website. Their description:

Daniel Day-Lewis's magnificent performance as the ambitious and ruthless oil tycoon Daniel Plainview is at the core of Paul Thomas Anderson's critically acclaimed movie There Will be Blood. In this discussion, which followed a Museum of the Moving Image preview screening of the film, the actor and director playfully and thoughtfully discussed their intense collaborative process.

You can listen to the interview here or for less entertainment, read the html or pdf versions of the transcript which are also provided under the audio links on their page.

Interview: Hollywood Elsewhere (Audio)

Hollywood Elsewhere, Interview by Jeff Wells
November 2007

Listen here.

Interview: Coming Soon.net

Coming Soon.net, Written By Edward Douglas
November 19, 2007

P.T. Anderson's There Will Be Blood

P. T. Anderson's fifth movie There Will Be Blood has very little in common with his previous four in that there's very little deliberate humor in its exploration of the early days of the oil drilling business in California as told through the rise and fall of oilman Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis), whose oil drilling business is thriving until he arrives at the ultra-religious town of Little Boston and finds himself in conflict with their young evangelical minister Eli Sunday (Paul Dano). Even as the town proves to be a bonanza of oil profits, Plainview's personal life takes a downturn as the important things in his life like family succumb to his greed and lust to find oil.

Anderson and actors Daniel Day-Lewis and Paul Dano held a press conference in New York City to talk about the movie that was inspired by Upton Sinclair's novel "Oil!" and ComingSoon.net was there to take notes.

Interview: NY Times

New York Times, Written By Lynn Hirschberg
November 2007

The New Frontier’s Man
By LYNN HIRSCHBERG; New York Times

IN 1976, WHEN HE WAS 19, Daniel Day-Lewis, who is British and was trained in the grand theatrical tradition of Shakespeare and the classics, saw “Taxi Driver” and, despite the considerable weight and seeming obligation of his heritage, realized that what he longed to be was an American actor. “It was a real illumination,” Day-Lewis told me late in August as he sat at the rough wood dining table of a duplex apartment in downtown Manhattan, where he and his wife, Rebecca Miller, and their two boys stay when in New York. “I saw ‘Taxi Driver’ five or six times in the first week, and I was astonished by its sheer visceral beauty. I just kept going back — I didn’t know America, but that was a glimpse of what America might be, and I realized that, contrary to expectation, I wanted to tell American stories.” It was raining hard outside, and Day-Lewis, who has the look of an elegant vagabond, was wearing clothes seemingly chosen many years ago for their utility and subtle details. His loose denim jeans were worn soft and white by use and the once-vibrant red plaid of his shirt had aged into a warm maroon. Day-Lewis is tall and lean and has tattoos circling his lower arms and the permanently inked handprints of his and Miller’s two sons climbing up his body to his shoulders. There were gold loops in each earlobe, and although he had left his sturdy, beat-up leather work boots outside the front door and was padding around in his socks, Day-Lewis still had a kind-of-jaunty porkpie hat on his head. The hat covered his long black hair and set off the contours of his face, which is dominated by his noble, bashed nose.

Interview: Entertainment Weekly

Entertainment Weekly, Written By Chris Willman
November 8, 2007

There Will Be Music
''There Will Be Blood'' director Paul Thomas Anderson and composer Jonny Greenwood (a.k.a. Radiohead's guitarist), chat about their unique collaboration on December's historical epic

At or near the top of most cinephiles' list of the most exciting filmmakers working today is Paul Thomas Anderson. Fill in ''music fans'' and ''bands'' in the above construction, and Radiohead is the no-brainer choice to end that sentence. Now, Anderson and Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood have teamed up. The director of such landmark films as Boogie Nights and Magnolia enlisted one of the main creative forces behind such landmark albums as OK Computer and Kid A to score the highly anticipated There Will Be Blood (opening Dec. 26). There will be strings... often abrasive, dissonant, disturbing, and always very loud strings.

Blood marks a departure for both mavericks, though maybe even a little more so for Anderson, who'd never done a period piece before tackling this tale of a misanthropic oil man (Daniel Day-Lewis) in California at the turn of the last century. Though it's not widely known, Greenwood is no neophyte to orchestration, having done one film score before (for an experimental documentary called Bodysong), in addition to being commissioned by the BBC to compose a piece called ''Popcorn Superhet Receiver,'' which is excerpted in Blood and helped get him this gig.

If you can't wait for the film to hit theaters at Christmas time, a soundtrack CD on Nonesuch will precede the movie. But if you really, really can't wait, EW got the two collaborators on the phone together, trans-Atlantically, to talk about their collaboration.