Interview: "Boogie Fever"

Boogie Fever, Written By Greg King
February ??, 1998


Greg King gets down with Paul Thomas Anderson, the director of Boogie Nights.

"I was just obsessed with movies, and I've done everything in my life just guiding towards that." Ever since he saw Rocky twenty years ago, 26 year old film director Paul Thomas Anderson has wanted to make movies. He admires the work of the late John Sturges, but he also loves the films of contemporary directors like Jonathan Demme, Robert Altman and Martin Scorsese.

Anderson began working as a production assistant on television movies, videos and game shows and several independent movies before moving into writing and directing his own films. In 1992 he wrote a short film called Cigarettes And Coffee, borrowing a camera to shoot it. The film appeared at Sundance in 1993, and Anderson was later to develop it into a full length feature. The result was Hard Eight, a low key morality play about a veteran gambler (Philip Baker Hall) who seeks redemption for his past sins by teaching a down and out gambler (John C Reilly) some of the tricks of his trade. The film also starred Gwyneth Paltrow as a down and out hooker and Samuel L Jackson as an enforcer. Although described as a cross between Pulp Fiction and Leaving Las Vegas by some American critics, this down beat and ultimately flawed crime thriller disappeared straight onto video in this country.