Girls On - Claire Magazine
Fall 1997
I get 15 minutes. A short amount of time considering my hours of preparation for this interview--up since six a.m., writing out questions, rehearsing, calling Lise ("is that question too obnoxious?"). I come to his jazzy uptown New York hotel 20 minutes early, armed with a recorder, five 90-minute micro- cassette tapes, extra batteries, notebook, four pens, Boogie Nights production notes. Then I sit in the lobby like a dick, not thinking to call his room, testing my recorder for the thousandth time. After half an hour, I finally call, and his assistant appears to usher me to his suite.
I walk in and see that this guy is young. Like 26 or 27 young. And not only did L.A. native Paul Thomas Anderson write and direct Boogie Nights, he also wrote and directed a flick that I recently caught on video and loved, Hard Eight, with Gwyneth Paltrow and Philip Baker Hall. I'm a little star-struck, frankly. But he's just sitting there, all casual and sweet-looking and poised, smoking his Camels. He's kind of thin, with glasses and not-so-recently-washed-looking hair. Regular clothes--khakis, a button-up shirt (not oxford, though). But I notice he's wearing one of those super-hip G-Shock watches. Mmm-hmm. Mental note: wearing G-Shock. This is going well.
