Interview: Boogie Nights Screenplay Introduction

Boogie Nights Screenplay Introduction
Written by Paul Thomas Anderson - December 12th, 1997


So here is the script I suppose, technically, was ten years in the making. When I was seventeen - young, impressionable and horny - I wrote a short film called The Dirk Diggler Story. I shot it on video and it was fun and actually pretty good.

What I was doing for the ten years I was trying to write this script? Well, I was actually devising what I think is an interesting method. The short film was a fictionally documentary, basically a Spinal Tap and Zelig rip-off. A couple of years later, when I was nineteen, I expanded the short into a feature, keeping the structure of a fictional documentary. Well, by that time, the format, so wonderfully done so many times, had, in fact, 'been done so many times.'

I spent a couple of years getting over that format and decided to write a straight narrative. So when approaching the first draft, I was basically adapting a documentary. It worked wonderfully for me to have a sort of 'bible' to reference whenever I felt myself getting lost in so many stories and so many ideas.

I want to note a couple of (some obvious) sources of inspiration and would urge anyone who hasn't seen these films to see them as soon as you can. Stop reading this stupid introduction and see these films: Battle of Algiers (Pontecorvo), Nashville (Altman), GoodFellas (Scorsese), Singin in the Rain (Donen), Shoot the Piano Player, Jules and Jim (Truffaut), Putney Swope (Downey, Sr.), 42nd Street (Bacon), The Jade Pussycat (Chinn). These are pictures which not only influenced and inspired me to make films but were really templates (all in odd and various stages), massive life preserves in the writing of Boogie Nights.

The script you have in your hands is the one we went to the set with every day. You will see that some stuff is shot exactly as written and you will notice that some stuff has changed. The changes, by a ;large percent, are the result of having brilliant actors who have me, the biggest geek fan of their work, laughing at any and all bits if improv that they could muster. If you hire John C. Reilly, Don Cheadle, Phil Hoffman, Mark Wahlberg, Luis Guzman, Heather Graham, Bob Ridgely, Julianne Moore, Burt Reynolds, Melora Walters, Ricky Jay, Bill Macy, Thomas Jane and Alfred Molina, the best thing to do is sit back and enjoy all that they give.

I've come to realize that my function as a director is to be a good writer. My obligation as a director is to deliver the actors a good script, thus making my job as a director describable as 'hanging out' and watching them go. No good actor needs direction beyond 'Let's do another one' and 'Keep it simple.'

I hope one thing that is clear is that this script is not written like a book. In other words, this is a script not a novel. In other words, there is no description of behavior. In other words, there is not flour and sugar. In other words, this is a script written for actors. An actor does not need a full description of their character. They do not need: 'Angela, thirtyish and hot as hell. I mean real hot, hot like the Noxema girl (if you know what I mean). She walks smoothly and with a flair for the exceptional into the room, and then looks longingly at her hands, remembering that her father once told her, "You're a bad girl,"' This is how most screenplays are written. This sort of thing must be written by writers who have no interest in meeting or socializing with actors. If you have written this and you can find an actress to play this part, as described, you will have a bad actress. Actors do not need this, they do not want it. Don't give it to them; they will not read it anyway. This is writing for studio executives. Studio executives do not make movies. They pretend that they make movies. This is a script written for people who really make the movie, people who physically put it into existence, and all they need are the facts. Pure and Simple.

There are two sequences in the script that are fairly important to the script, but in the end were not very important to the picture. They are Becky/Jerome/Dirk's Car sequence (sc. 138 - 146) and Dirk's return home to Sheryl Lynn (sc. 182 - 185). We shot these bits and they were wonderful, but in an effort to focus the storytelling, I cut them. I miss them only when I see them, but I sure don't miss them when I'm watching the film.

The 'Sequences' that you'll see listed through the script were mile markers for the production crew. It's a system that I formed from ripping off a more complicated system that Preston Sturges devised in structuring his shooting scripts. Each Sequence, marked by letters, usually meant that some very specific piece of music was being used and we should all pay attention to that vibe. It translated into costume design stuff (more color, less color), camera moves (fast, slow, with zooms, high or low contrast, etc.) and a general handle on how the film would structure. Sequence D was our favorite because it was a free-for-all. No matching. No rules. No anything. D for debauchery, D for drugs, D for down, D for do anything.

I wrote three drafts of Boogie Nights. This is the final shooting script. The 'pink pages' (noted with asterisks next to the scene) or rewrites are stuff that I did either right before shooting as a result of something in rehearsals or as a result of budgetary/scheduling conflicts.

A few people to thank for this script and its publication: John Lesher, Joanne Sellar, Walter Donohue, Mike DeLuca, Lynn Harris, Lloyd Levin, Wendy Weidman, Dylan Tichenor, Paula Chavez.

If you liked the movie, I hope you like the script. If you didn't like the movie, this script isn't going to help much.

P.T. Anderson

12 December 1997

Los Angeles, California

Interview: Creative Screenwriting, Paul Thomas Anderson

Creative Screenwriting Magazine, Written By Kristine McKenna
?? ?? 1997


Paul Thomas Anderson introduced himself this year in a very big way. February saw the release of his first film, Hard Eight, a study of four lost souls adrift on the Reno gambling scene that garnered glowing reviews, but was so poorly marketed that it never found its audience. Just eight months later he hit a home run with his second film Boogie Nights, a two-and-a-half-hour epic chronicling the shifting fortunes of the pornography industry during the years of 1977 to 1983. Set in the Fernando Valley, where Anderson was born in 1970 and continues to live, the film features an ensemble cast that includes Mark Wahlberg, Burt Reynolds, Julianne Moore, Heather Graham, John C. Reilly, William Macy, and Alfred Molina.

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.

Interview: AOL/Premiere Magazine Chat Transcript

AOL/Premiere Magazine Chat Transcript With Paul Thomas Anderson
November 17 1997


Boogie Nights is one of the most audacious movies ever to come out of Hollywood. An in-depth look at the Southern California porn industry, circa 1980, Boogie Nights, stars Mark Wahlberg, Burt Reynolds and Julianne Moore, and it brings the era of sex, drugs and disco to vivid life. With its explicit sex scenes, its random violence and its portrayal of a feverish, out-of-control society, Boogie Nights is sure to be the most talked-about film of the year.

Astonishingly, its director, Paul Thomas Anderson, was a young boy during the period it chronicles. But the 26-year-old filmmaker has a vivid memory of the sights and sounds of the late 70s and early 80s -- the shag haircuts, the lava lamps, the water beds. Boogie Nights is his second feature (his first was Hard Eight, with Gwyneth Paltrow), but already Anderson shows the psychological penetration of a master filmmaker.

Interview: "Anderson Boogies With Confidence"

San Diego Tribune, Written By David Elliott
November 9th, 1997


"The motion picture represents our customs and our daily life more distinctly than any other medium. . . "  -- MGM studio god Irving Thalberg, 1929

Irving Thalberg never did, or could, or would, make a movie like "Boogie Nights." Just the thought would have turned his white skin to blue velvet.

I try to imagine courtly mogul Thalberg and his showcase wife, Norma Shearer, cozy in their home screening room -- Irving formal yet dapper, Norma in something silky concocted by Adrian. Late into the very elite "Boogie Nights" preview, one of the more outspoken guests (Anita Loos? Marion Davies?) chirps, "Yowza, look at that love wand on Dirk Diggler!"

Yes, the flashback is unreal, impossible, although the Thalbergs certainly knew the facts of life, and you can bet there was little laundering of hot gossip about Fatty Arbuckle, Mae West or Errol Flynn. But Thalberg's Hollywood was largely defined by his taste, which meant major book adaptations, the Production Code in force, and a clean screen (though often speckled with double-entendres).

Thalberg had no need to make films about male bimbos with big bazookas. There was more sexiness in the beam of Clark Gable's smile, or the silvery shrug of Jean Harlow's shoulder. It has taken 60 years after the Thalberg era (and almost 30 since "breast king" Russ Meyer briefly enjoyed a Fox contract) for Hollywood to be forcefully reminded that sex films are, indeed, part of "the industry," even if parked back near the drainage pipes.

Michael Penn - Try (1997)

Shot in one of the longest hallways in North America, "Try" includes "Boogie Nights" talent (Hoffman, Walters, Jane). Look for an homage to Pollack's "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?". PTA trickery: Michael Penn weaving in and out of the hallway (into a door, and ending up behind the camera, as it continues to pull back.)

Interview: Fresh Air Transcript

National Public Radio, Used With Permission of Terry Gross
October 31st, 1997



Terry Gross: That's Burt Reynolds and Mark Wahlberg in a scene from "Boogie Nights," a new movie about a group of people who make porn films. Reynolds plays a director who's slightly more ambitious than the average X-rated director. He aspires to make movies that people will watch for the story as well as the sex.

Mark Wahlberg plays the well-endowed teenager who, with the help of the director, becomes one of the biggest stars of adult films.

Boogie Nights takes place from 1977 to '84 and chronicles how the business was turned upside-down by cocaine and video. Boogie Nights shared the Toronto Film Festival's top award with "L.A. Confidential." My guest is the screenwriter and director of Boogie Nights, Paul Thomas Anderson. Although he's only 27, this is his second feature film. His first, "Hard Eight," was set in the world of casino gambling.

Interview: "Boogie Man: Roughcut Q&A"

Roughcut Q&A, Written By David Poland
October 30, 1997


Paul Thomas Anderson grew up in California's San Fernando Valley with a father well-known for his on-screen appearances.  No, not THAT kind of on-screen work. Paul's dad was Ernie Anderson, Cleveland's most beloved horror movie host. As a TV personality, Anderson was the first guy on the block to have a VCR, which allowed the young Paul to immerse himself in movies, pornographic and otherwise. By the age of 22, Paul's love affair with film took him to the Sundance Film Festival with his short film, Cigarettes and Coffee. He was then invited to join the Sundance Filmmaker's Workshop where he developed his first feature, Sydney AKA Hard Eight starring Philip Baker Hall, John C. Reilly and Gwyneth Paltrow. Now, at 27, his second feature, Boogie Nights has left Anderson Tarantino-hot and well on his way to a long, successful directing career. Rough Cut's David Poland caught up with Anderson in Los Angeles, a week before Boogie Nights premiered at the New York Film Festival.

>> You were 26 years old when you shot this film. How could you know about the sexy '70s?
I was 7 when the movie begins and 14 when the movie ends. Maybe it is a twisted sort of version of my childhood. Because I grew up in the valley. And I had brothers and sisters who were going through this stuff. It wasn't like I said, "I want to make a movie set in the '70s and we'll use all this cool music." It was just icing on the cake. Moving into the early '80s was kind of, pick your headband and I'll have the Capezios.

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."