Paul - Y2K and beyond!Paul listed was listed as one of the 20 talents we'll still be talking in the Year 2020."This auteur's skill with the quill - his control of interlaced story lines, his creation of complex characters, and his attraction to society's underbelly - aligns him more with Martin Scorsese, Robert Altman, and even Billy Wilder than with the would-be Tarantino crowd.
Tuesday, February 23, 1999
February 1999
Archived update from Cigarettes & Coffee, run by Greg Mariotti & CJ Wallis from 1999-2005
Friday, February 12, 1999
Interview: Roger Ebert Q&A
Roger Ebert's Movie Yearbook
1999
Chicago, October 1997 - Paul Thomas Anderson has made one of the best films of 1997, and at age twenty-seven is getting the kind of attention no young director has had since Quentin Tarantino erupted. His Boogie Nights, which follows a cast of colorful characters through six eventful years in the adult film industry, is the year's best-reviewed film - a hit at the Toronto and New York Film Festivals.
Although the film's subject matter is touchy, Boogie Nights is not a sex film; porno supplies the backdrop to a traditionally structured Hollywood story about an unknown kid (Mark Wahlberg) who is discovered by a director (Burt Reynolds), encouraged by an older actress (Julianne Moore), and becomes a star - until his ego and drugs bring everything crashing down.
Apart from anything else, the film is about filmmaking. It captures the familial atmosphere of a film set as well as any film since Truffaut's Day for Night. The focus is not on sex but on loneliness and desperation, leavened with a lot of humor, some of it dark, some of it lighthearted.
Boogie Nights is Anderson's second feature. When I saw the first one in 1996 at the Cannes Film Festival, I felt I was watching the work of a born filmmaker. Hard Eight starred John C. Reilly and Philip Baker Hall in the story of a relationship between an old gambler who shows the ropes in Nevada to a broke kid. As characters played by Gwyneth Paltrow and Samuel L. Jackson get involved, the story reveals hidden connections. It is a riveting debut film.
1999
Chicago, October 1997 - Paul Thomas Anderson has made one of the best films of 1997, and at age twenty-seven is getting the kind of attention no young director has had since Quentin Tarantino erupted. His Boogie Nights, which follows a cast of colorful characters through six eventful years in the adult film industry, is the year's best-reviewed film - a hit at the Toronto and New York Film Festivals.
Although the film's subject matter is touchy, Boogie Nights is not a sex film; porno supplies the backdrop to a traditionally structured Hollywood story about an unknown kid (Mark Wahlberg) who is discovered by a director (Burt Reynolds), encouraged by an older actress (Julianne Moore), and becomes a star - until his ego and drugs bring everything crashing down.
Apart from anything else, the film is about filmmaking. It captures the familial atmosphere of a film set as well as any film since Truffaut's Day for Night. The focus is not on sex but on loneliness and desperation, leavened with a lot of humor, some of it dark, some of it lighthearted.
Boogie Nights is Anderson's second feature. When I saw the first one in 1996 at the Cannes Film Festival, I felt I was watching the work of a born filmmaker. Hard Eight starred John C. Reilly and Philip Baker Hall in the story of a relationship between an old gambler who shows the ropes in Nevada to a broke kid. As characters played by Gwyneth Paltrow and Samuel L. Jackson get involved, the story reveals hidden connections. It is a riveting debut film.
Tuesday, December 01, 1998
Fiona Apple - Across The Universe (1998)
From the soundtrack of "Pleasantville."' Filmed in 5 long continuous shots, consisting of Fiona Apple oblivious to the chaos of many men destroying a soda shop. Many impressive moments, including the camera passing across a mirror & its reflection is not shown. Shot in black & white featuring a prominent cameo by John C. Reilly.
Tuesday, August 25, 1998
Interview: Neon's 10 Films That Influenced Boogie Nights
Neon Magazine UK
August ??, 1998
1. Putney Swope (Robert Downey Sr.) (1969)
"I came across it at a video store when I was fourteen or fifteen. I got it because Robert Downey Sr. seemed interesting to me because I'd just seen Robert Downey Jr. in some little movie. I was also having a 'black culture' phase in my life, and this seemed like a real cool movie to watch. When I watched it, it was the first time I realized that you could be really punk rock in a movie. You could do just anything: it didn't necessarily have to make sense. As long as it was funny, or funny to the guy who was making it, it would come across as exciting somehow. It was made in 1969, and at the time, Downey Sr. style was considered to be very odd and very avant-garde."
2. Nashville (Robert Altman) (1975)
"I actually just got a print of this to screen tonight because it's my birthday and that's what I'm going to watch. This film is perfect, absolutely perfect, to me. It's a cinemascope movie, which I love, and so incredibly bold. The long camera takes, the overlapping dialogue, the multi-track recording that he first implemented here. And to have all these stories but still keep you interested, it's amazing. The film feels so natural, dirty and fucked up, but so cutting-edge. Nashville gets me speechless - it's just one of his best. For me, it's right up there with The Long Goodbye."
August ??, 1998
1. Putney Swope (Robert Downey Sr.) (1969)
"I came across it at a video store when I was fourteen or fifteen. I got it because Robert Downey Sr. seemed interesting to me because I'd just seen Robert Downey Jr. in some little movie. I was also having a 'black culture' phase in my life, and this seemed like a real cool movie to watch. When I watched it, it was the first time I realized that you could be really punk rock in a movie. You could do just anything: it didn't necessarily have to make sense. As long as it was funny, or funny to the guy who was making it, it would come across as exciting somehow. It was made in 1969, and at the time, Downey Sr. style was considered to be very odd and very avant-garde."
2. Nashville (Robert Altman) (1975)
"I actually just got a print of this to screen tonight because it's my birthday and that's what I'm going to watch. This film is perfect, absolutely perfect, to me. It's a cinemascope movie, which I love, and so incredibly bold. The long camera takes, the overlapping dialogue, the multi-track recording that he first implemented here. And to have all these stories but still keep you interested, it's amazing. The film feels so natural, dirty and fucked up, but so cutting-edge. Nashville gets me speechless - it's just one of his best. For me, it's right up there with The Long Goodbye."
Thursday, June 18, 1998
Flagpole Special (1998)
This 17 minute short was shot by PTA for inclusion at the RETinevitable 1 which is held at the base of the Brooklyn Bridge in New York.
Paul made the film specifically for the festival at Adam Levite's request who incidentally designed the cover art for the Criterion LaserDisc & Boogie Nights 2 Disc Platinum Series DVD.
The short lays the early groundwork for the Frank "TJ" Mackey character as John C. Reilly & Chris Penn spend the entire film talking about how to "Seduce and Destroy" women.
Here's a brief summary of the short by Res Magazine from their Summer 1998 issue:
"Paul Thomas Anderson premiered "Flagpole Special", a single seventeen-minute locked-off take on digital video of the torsos of two guys - a long haired, bicycle panted, chubby ranting about women as his pal idly strums his electric guitar. Based on a conversation Anderson found on a discarded audiotape, the characters, portrayed by actors John C. Reilly and Chris Penn, managed to keep up their inane dialogue for an irresistibly mind-boggling amount of time like a flesh-and-blood Beavis and Butthead."
The press screening was ruined by an audio malfunction (see the Entertainment Weekly article below), but was eventually fixed before the screening held for the public.
Here's the piece EW ran on their website.
SCREEN SHOW
The director of "Boogie Nights" and other film notables screen their new experimental films Directors Paul Thomas Anderson ("Boogie Nights"), Atom Egoyan ("The Sweet Hereafter""), and Harmony Korine (writer of "Kids") screened their new experimental films Tuesday night in a show of short films and art installations at RET.inevitable, a sprawling art event in Brooklyn that showcased cutting- edge music and cinema. David Byrne, actor/director Vincent Gallo, and techno artist Moby were among hundreds of downtown denizens who packed the catacombs beneath the Brooklyn Bridge. Films were projected on 50- foot stone walls and ceilings, while DJs mixed beats to video collages of flashy graphics intercut with scenes from such flicks as "Rollerball" and "Clueless." It was a night for young cinematic talent: The only trace of the Hollywood old guard was director Peter Bogdanovich's cameo in a short film by Francis Ford Coppola's daughter, Sofia. The directors' presentations veered from the inspired to the shocking. Egoyan's "Peep Show" used double exposures and dramatic film tinting that made it hard to follow the action. Music- video director Spike Jonze earned cheers for his hilarious short, "How They Get There," which showed how a harmless flirtation can end in a brutal car crash. Unfortunately, Anderson's eagerly anticipated work, a short video called "Flagpole Special," was ruined by an audio malfunction (Please note: this was only during the press screening. It was shown to the public with no audio problems).
Courtesy of Entertainment Weekly - Josh Wolk - 6/18/98
SCREEN SHOW
The director of "Boogie Nights" and other film notables screen their new experimental films Directors Paul Thomas Anderson ("Boogie Nights"), Atom Egoyan ("The Sweet Hereafter""), and Harmony Korine (writer of "Kids") screened their new experimental films Tuesday night in a show of short films and art installations at RET.inevitable, a sprawling art event in Brooklyn that showcased cutting- edge music and cinema. David Byrne, actor/director Vincent Gallo, and techno artist Moby were among hundreds of downtown denizens who packed the catacombs beneath the Brooklyn Bridge. Films were projected on 50- foot stone walls and ceilings, while DJs mixed beats to video collages of flashy graphics intercut with scenes from such flicks as "Rollerball" and "Clueless." It was a night for young cinematic talent: The only trace of the Hollywood old guard was director Peter Bogdanovich's cameo in a short film by Francis Ford Coppola's daughter, Sofia. The directors' presentations veered from the inspired to the shocking. Egoyan's "Peep Show" used double exposures and dramatic film tinting that made it hard to follow the action. Music- video director Spike Jonze earned cheers for his hilarious short, "How They Get There," which showed how a harmless flirtation can end in a brutal car crash. Unfortunately, Anderson's eagerly anticipated work, a short video called "Flagpole Special," was ruined by an audio malfunction (Please note: this was only during the press screening. It was shown to the public with no audio problems).
Courtesy of Entertainment Weekly - Josh Wolk - 6/18/98
Friday, March 20, 1998
Interview: "Down With The PTA"
FilmInk Magazine, Written By Dov Kornits
March ?? 1998
He grew up in the San Fernando Valley during porn's prime and made a short film for Sundance called Cigarettes and Coffee. Then his first feature script Sydney (which became Hard Eight) was read by Gwyneth Paltrow and Samuel L. Jackson and he made his directorial debut with this quirky, largely overlooked gem. But there's no doubt everyone who matters noticed his next film, the uniformly acclaimed Boogie Nights. Paul Thomas Anderson is 27 years old and down with Burt Reynolds, Mark Wahlberg and some of the hippest people in Hollywood. Even Warren Beatty has his number. It's about time he got down with FilmInk
Smoking
“You know what, I don’t want to talk to you. I don’t want to talk to someone who has just given up smoking. No fuckin’ way. But I know a lot of people who have and they turn into maniacs. You’re talking to the wrong guy. I started smoking when I was 18. I had just gotten out of high school and there everybody smoked there. I hated everybody so I went the opposite way of what everybody did. ‘You all just smoke because you think you’re cool. If I smoke I’m gonna smoke because I want to smoke, not because I think it looks cool.’ So I got out of high school and was sitting around by myself. ‘I think I’ll smoke. But I’ll smoke in private. I don’t want it to be a chic thing.’ So I just started smoking and before I knew it (clicks his fingers), I was addicted.”
The Dirk Diggler Story
“When I was 17 I made The Dirk Diggler Story on videotape, which was a short fictional documentary version of Boogie Nights. Zelig format - interviews with people about Dirk Diggler. Then, you know, stood on that, kept writing scripts and stuff. Then when I was 21 made a short film called Cigarettes and Coffee, that went to Sundance and people saw that. I didn’t go to film school so I was able to shave some time in order to write. I shaved four years off my schedule by not going to film school. I had this movie called Sydney which became Hard Eight, got that financed because Gwyneth Paltrow and Sam Jackson wanted to be in it. Got lucky with that.”
Regular Cast Members
“I was a fan. Phillip Baker Hall and John Reilly and Phil Hoffman, all actors that were in both Sydney and Boogie Nights. I'm sure there are certain directors who just want to work with Tom Cruise. So do I, but I wanted to work with Phillip Baker Hall, you know what I mean? I wanted to work with John C. Reilly, I wanted to work with Phil Hoffman. I'd seen Phil in Scent of a Woman., I’d seen John Reilly in everything he’d done like Casualties of War, I'd seen Phillip Baker Hall in a ton of stuff. Those were the guys I was into. Fuck Sean Penn, I want Reilly. That's just where my taste landed me. That's not really commercial taste. It’s lucky enough that Gwyneth and Samuel were my taste, and they were able to get the movie financed because they were in it. So I could have all the actors I wanted. It's very rare to have good actors and actors who can get a movie financed. Usually their names are not on both lists. Do you know what I mean? The wonderful thing now is that due to the success of Boogie Nights, I can keep putting my favorite actors in movies and don't have to worry so much about star power.
Tom Cruise
“I’ve gotten to work with all the character actors I want to work with, but the biggest star actor I want to work with is Tom Cruise. I fuckin' love him. He's the man. I love Tom Cruise. I mean I'm not going to pay him $20 million, but he's a great actor. Top Gun sucked but I loved him in Color of Money, I loved him in Jerry Maguire. I think that is such a good performance. It really reminds me of a Jimmy Stewart performance. It's really simple and he's very good. Funny, charming, lost and confused. He's really good at confused. I actually find him very similar to John Reilly in a very twisted way.
John C. Reilly
“There’s a lot of what he’s really like in John Reilly performances in my movies just because I know him so well. We’re best friends.”
Porn Director Paul Thomas
They fucked me up. I don't know if this is right. I have personal friends who know Paul Thomas who is a porn star and he never went by Paul Thomas Anderson, that's not his name.
Mark Wahlberg
“When I first met Mark I sat down with him. I was excited to meet him because I’d seen Basketball Diaries. ‘Let’s hope he’s a good guy because I know he’s a good actor and can do this part.’ And he’d only read thirty pages of the script. I thought what the fuck is this. Who is this jackass? ‘Why have you only read thirty pages?’ And he said ‘Cause I love it. I just wanted to make sure that you wanted me as an actor and not because I’m the guy who will get into his underwear from the Calvin Klein stuff.’ I was like ‘I don’t give a shit about all the Calvin Klein stuff. I’m interested in you as an actor, so go finish reading the fucking script and come back.’ He loved it so much he didn’t want to be disappointed to get to the end of it and love it even more and find out that I just wanted the underwear guy. So I said ‘I don’t want the underwear guy, go finish reading it and come back and we’ll talk.’ And he said ‘I love it and I want to be in it. He called me PTA and I call him Marky. After this film he asks for $2 million a film, I can call him whatever the fuck I like, motherfucker.”
Ron Jeremy
Ron Jeremy never came to the set. He was just one of the first people that I met in the porn industry. He's just such a pain in the ass and such a fuckin' pest that I had to give him a credit otherwise he would have never left me alone. Mark met him once and Ron took him to a porn set. Ron Jeremy just wanted him to listen to his rap records. Mark was like 'Get your fuckin' rap record away from me.''
The San Fernando Valley
“I grew up in the San Fernando Valley, which is the capital of porn production in the middle of a suburb of LA. It was always around me and I was always interested in it. Film shoots would be happening around me and I was interested. I would see the outside of the houses where I knew it was going on because of the people coming in and out. I could put 2 and 2 together. It’s an industrial warehouse with no signs on it and you’d see people coming in and out. There’s no sign on the door. I think something’s going on. On top of that I had a fascination with pornography, half-sociological, half-horny young man. Just like giggly camp value. But also the filmmaking side. In the same way some people get excited about 50’s sci-fi B movies, the same kind of excitement I get from 70’s porno films. Looking at what they wanted to be, what they tried to be which was artistic. Yeah sure, a sex film but also with form of storytelling merit, and I thought it was romantic. It’s ironic that it was taken away by the video revolution.”
Seventies Porn
“I think it could have evolved into something because it was snuffed out before it had a chance to breathe. In the 70’s you had porn filmmakers trying to inject plot, story and1 characters. These were people trying to attach something to what was basically fuck films. At the same time you had mainstream Hollywood which was being so subversive, so cutting edge and so cool during the Seventies. So it was like two locomotives that were coming at each other. Porn films trying to be legitimate but still catering to their market, and legitimate films that were getting more towards Clockwork Orange and Midnight Cowboy. Momentarily it seemed like they were going to collide and straight, legitimate films would have collided with porn and it would have resulted in some really interesting stuff. Porn got derailed by video and the wonderful Hollywood stuff in the Seventies got derailed by Star Wars.”
Old Movies
“I get into 30’s and 40’s films just because I can’t do it, so I just love watching little traditional plots, you know what I mean. Because I’m so bad at it, I just love watching good stories.”
Boogie Nights: The long and short of it
No, really, it was THIS long! - "Yeah somebody said my movies are too long and I cut their fucking throat. No, New Line asked me once or twice whether it has to be this long and I said 'Yes, shut up.' It is what it is. It's long but if it was a minute shorter you'd say it was too short and if it was a minute longer you'd say it was too long." I had a three hour cut, so I cut out about thirty minutes out of it.
Dirk's Tunes
I wrote Feel the Heat. Yeah. I'm not giving up the rights to that. John Reilly wrote the music. We were very proud of that. And Mark did a very good job of singing. "You Got The Touch" I actually discovered when I was 16 or 17 years old on a soundtrack to The Transformers animated movie. I saw this in a 99 cents bin and thought this looks ridiculous, I gotta buy this. The original "You Got The Touch" was on it. So we covered it, fucked it up a bit and made it sound more like a demo. We paid through the nose for that song, not. It was great fun doing the cover. I said to Michael Penn who did the score and said ‘Listen to this song, now do the cover of it as if it’s a porn star doing a demo.’”
Shooting sex scenes
I wasn't embarrassed, I was nervous. The first scene we shot was when Heather Graham takes her clothes, gets on top of Dirk and says I never take my skates off. It was the first sex scene she'd ever done and it was the first sex scene I'd ever shot. I was more nervous than her and I was driving her crazy because I was looking out for her. After four or five takes I just snapped out of it and said 'Well, I can't do this. I have to be the director. There's something wrong with the shot but I'm too nervous talking to Heather, I'm too boyish because I'm staring at her naked body. I have to get over this because I'm not doing my job. We did. And I got to give her directions. 'Heather, you gotta kiss him like a porn star, you're kissing him too nice. Be nasty.' You get into the groove and it becomes like any other scene.
Censorship Blues
“We had a few hassles with the MPAA, which is the rating board of America. We didn’t have to lose much. At the time it was hellish to go through and I thought it was cutting up my baby. But then I stepped back and thought ‘Well this isn’t so bad. All we’re losing is a couple of frames of Mark’s ass.’ It’s not fucking up the story or losing the rhythm. About 85% of the script is in the film.”
Hard Eight
"The original title for my first film was Sydney. They thought it was a movie about Australia. I just said fuck off, you're just a fuckin' TV movie [referring to the release title Hard Eight]. It was released in America, got great reviews and nobody went and saw it."
Listen to What the Man Said…
“This has been huge. I knew it was a good movie but I didn’t think this and LA Confidential would be the best reviewed movies of the year. It made it into over 200 critics’ top ten lists. I knew it was good, but didn’t know it was that good.”
Burt and Warren
I sent Burt the script. Then I saw Striptease and it nearly made me not cast him. But I sent him the script, I met him and he said it's great, let's go. Then Warren Beatty called me up on the phone and wanted to talk. I was like 'you're wrong for this movie', but then a day later I was mesmerized by Warren and was like 'you're right for this movie, you must be in my movie' and he was like 'I don't want to be in your movie'.
A Titanic Decision
"Leonardo DiCaprio was my first choice for Dirk Diggler in Boogie Nights. I met Leo and ultimately he decided to do Titanic and that has worked out real well for him. Leo is still great, a good guy and a friend of mine. Mark is great and better than Leo would have been. Leo is better than Mark would have been in Titanic. So everybody ended up doing the right thing and I'm just happy that Mark is in it."
The Robert Altman Influence
“Who? Who? Never heard of him. Nashville never heard of it. Never even seen it. I wouldn’t know it if it hit me….I know every frame of that movie, it’s one of my favourite movies and certainly the ensemble storytelling influenced Boogie Nights. It’s funny because as much as I love Nashville it wasn’t like I set out originally to tell a Nashville-like story. Because that’s not the original Dirk Diggler story which was just about the one guy. But what happened was I fell in love with so many actors that stories multiplied and the more stories I heard about pornography I kept seeing this as a sign that I needed to use the Nashville model. I used three movies as templates and structure for my script. Goodfellas, Nashville, and Battle of Algiers. I love the idea of an ensemble movie, working on all cylinders at all times because it gets so many things going and it’s a challenge balancing all that.”
Influences
“The opening scene is not even remotely a homage to Goodfellas. There are a million other scenes that are homages but the opening scene has nothing to do with Goodfellas. I don't understand where people get it into their head that it is. I guess because it’s a nightclub and a long shot. But my inspiration for that shot came from Absolute Beginners, very glamorous. But the Scorsese influence came from the storytelling. Goodfellas is a movie about gangsters that somehow managed to become relatable an audience. So how do you tell a story to make these murderers, thieves and drug dealers acceptable to an audience. There’s something to be learned here because I’m making a movie about porno people who people don’t usually want to know anything about, so how do I tell a story about them to make them relatable.”
Loving Your Characters
“The balance was achieved because I knew I would not laugh too much at them because I had my friends playing the characters and I’m going to take care of the characters like I take care of my friends. When you hang out with your friends you laugh with them and you laugh at them, so I knew it was going to be okay. I love to fuck with Reilly as much as I love to protect him, so I knew I had the greatest defense mechanism built in already in terms of balancing that aspect of the story. There is an element of parody and I laugh as much at these people as I do with them. Ultimately I love them, so I know it’s going to be okay. So I don’t have to work on that aspect of the story, it just built in.”
What's Next?
You’ll just have to see (motioning towards his sleeves). I have a few tricks up my sleeve.”
March ?? 1998
He grew up in the San Fernando Valley during porn's prime and made a short film for Sundance called Cigarettes and Coffee. Then his first feature script Sydney (which became Hard Eight) was read by Gwyneth Paltrow and Samuel L. Jackson and he made his directorial debut with this quirky, largely overlooked gem. But there's no doubt everyone who matters noticed his next film, the uniformly acclaimed Boogie Nights. Paul Thomas Anderson is 27 years old and down with Burt Reynolds, Mark Wahlberg and some of the hippest people in Hollywood. Even Warren Beatty has his number. It's about time he got down with FilmInk
Smoking
“You know what, I don’t want to talk to you. I don’t want to talk to someone who has just given up smoking. No fuckin’ way. But I know a lot of people who have and they turn into maniacs. You’re talking to the wrong guy. I started smoking when I was 18. I had just gotten out of high school and there everybody smoked there. I hated everybody so I went the opposite way of what everybody did. ‘You all just smoke because you think you’re cool. If I smoke I’m gonna smoke because I want to smoke, not because I think it looks cool.’ So I got out of high school and was sitting around by myself. ‘I think I’ll smoke. But I’ll smoke in private. I don’t want it to be a chic thing.’ So I just started smoking and before I knew it (clicks his fingers), I was addicted.”
The Dirk Diggler Story
“When I was 17 I made The Dirk Diggler Story on videotape, which was a short fictional documentary version of Boogie Nights. Zelig format - interviews with people about Dirk Diggler. Then, you know, stood on that, kept writing scripts and stuff. Then when I was 21 made a short film called Cigarettes and Coffee, that went to Sundance and people saw that. I didn’t go to film school so I was able to shave some time in order to write. I shaved four years off my schedule by not going to film school. I had this movie called Sydney which became Hard Eight, got that financed because Gwyneth Paltrow and Sam Jackson wanted to be in it. Got lucky with that.”
Regular Cast Members
“I was a fan. Phillip Baker Hall and John Reilly and Phil Hoffman, all actors that were in both Sydney and Boogie Nights. I'm sure there are certain directors who just want to work with Tom Cruise. So do I, but I wanted to work with Phillip Baker Hall, you know what I mean? I wanted to work with John C. Reilly, I wanted to work with Phil Hoffman. I'd seen Phil in Scent of a Woman., I’d seen John Reilly in everything he’d done like Casualties of War, I'd seen Phillip Baker Hall in a ton of stuff. Those were the guys I was into. Fuck Sean Penn, I want Reilly. That's just where my taste landed me. That's not really commercial taste. It’s lucky enough that Gwyneth and Samuel were my taste, and they were able to get the movie financed because they were in it. So I could have all the actors I wanted. It's very rare to have good actors and actors who can get a movie financed. Usually their names are not on both lists. Do you know what I mean? The wonderful thing now is that due to the success of Boogie Nights, I can keep putting my favorite actors in movies and don't have to worry so much about star power.
Tom Cruise
“I’ve gotten to work with all the character actors I want to work with, but the biggest star actor I want to work with is Tom Cruise. I fuckin' love him. He's the man. I love Tom Cruise. I mean I'm not going to pay him $20 million, but he's a great actor. Top Gun sucked but I loved him in Color of Money, I loved him in Jerry Maguire. I think that is such a good performance. It really reminds me of a Jimmy Stewart performance. It's really simple and he's very good. Funny, charming, lost and confused. He's really good at confused. I actually find him very similar to John Reilly in a very twisted way.
John C. Reilly
“There’s a lot of what he’s really like in John Reilly performances in my movies just because I know him so well. We’re best friends.”
Porn Director Paul Thomas
They fucked me up. I don't know if this is right. I have personal friends who know Paul Thomas who is a porn star and he never went by Paul Thomas Anderson, that's not his name.
Mark Wahlberg
“When I first met Mark I sat down with him. I was excited to meet him because I’d seen Basketball Diaries. ‘Let’s hope he’s a good guy because I know he’s a good actor and can do this part.’ And he’d only read thirty pages of the script. I thought what the fuck is this. Who is this jackass? ‘Why have you only read thirty pages?’ And he said ‘Cause I love it. I just wanted to make sure that you wanted me as an actor and not because I’m the guy who will get into his underwear from the Calvin Klein stuff.’ I was like ‘I don’t give a shit about all the Calvin Klein stuff. I’m interested in you as an actor, so go finish reading the fucking script and come back.’ He loved it so much he didn’t want to be disappointed to get to the end of it and love it even more and find out that I just wanted the underwear guy. So I said ‘I don’t want the underwear guy, go finish reading it and come back and we’ll talk.’ And he said ‘I love it and I want to be in it. He called me PTA and I call him Marky. After this film he asks for $2 million a film, I can call him whatever the fuck I like, motherfucker.”
Ron Jeremy
Ron Jeremy never came to the set. He was just one of the first people that I met in the porn industry. He's just such a pain in the ass and such a fuckin' pest that I had to give him a credit otherwise he would have never left me alone. Mark met him once and Ron took him to a porn set. Ron Jeremy just wanted him to listen to his rap records. Mark was like 'Get your fuckin' rap record away from me.''
The San Fernando Valley
“I grew up in the San Fernando Valley, which is the capital of porn production in the middle of a suburb of LA. It was always around me and I was always interested in it. Film shoots would be happening around me and I was interested. I would see the outside of the houses where I knew it was going on because of the people coming in and out. I could put 2 and 2 together. It’s an industrial warehouse with no signs on it and you’d see people coming in and out. There’s no sign on the door. I think something’s going on. On top of that I had a fascination with pornography, half-sociological, half-horny young man. Just like giggly camp value. But also the filmmaking side. In the same way some people get excited about 50’s sci-fi B movies, the same kind of excitement I get from 70’s porno films. Looking at what they wanted to be, what they tried to be which was artistic. Yeah sure, a sex film but also with form of storytelling merit, and I thought it was romantic. It’s ironic that it was taken away by the video revolution.”
Seventies Porn
“I think it could have evolved into something because it was snuffed out before it had a chance to breathe. In the 70’s you had porn filmmakers trying to inject plot, story and1 characters. These were people trying to attach something to what was basically fuck films. At the same time you had mainstream Hollywood which was being so subversive, so cutting edge and so cool during the Seventies. So it was like two locomotives that were coming at each other. Porn films trying to be legitimate but still catering to their market, and legitimate films that were getting more towards Clockwork Orange and Midnight Cowboy. Momentarily it seemed like they were going to collide and straight, legitimate films would have collided with porn and it would have resulted in some really interesting stuff. Porn got derailed by video and the wonderful Hollywood stuff in the Seventies got derailed by Star Wars.”
Old Movies
“I get into 30’s and 40’s films just because I can’t do it, so I just love watching little traditional plots, you know what I mean. Because I’m so bad at it, I just love watching good stories.”
Boogie Nights: The long and short of it
No, really, it was THIS long! - "Yeah somebody said my movies are too long and I cut their fucking throat. No, New Line asked me once or twice whether it has to be this long and I said 'Yes, shut up.' It is what it is. It's long but if it was a minute shorter you'd say it was too short and if it was a minute longer you'd say it was too long." I had a three hour cut, so I cut out about thirty minutes out of it.
Dirk's Tunes
I wrote Feel the Heat. Yeah. I'm not giving up the rights to that. John Reilly wrote the music. We were very proud of that. And Mark did a very good job of singing. "You Got The Touch" I actually discovered when I was 16 or 17 years old on a soundtrack to The Transformers animated movie. I saw this in a 99 cents bin and thought this looks ridiculous, I gotta buy this. The original "You Got The Touch" was on it. So we covered it, fucked it up a bit and made it sound more like a demo. We paid through the nose for that song, not. It was great fun doing the cover. I said to Michael Penn who did the score and said ‘Listen to this song, now do the cover of it as if it’s a porn star doing a demo.’”
Shooting sex scenes
I wasn't embarrassed, I was nervous. The first scene we shot was when Heather Graham takes her clothes, gets on top of Dirk and says I never take my skates off. It was the first sex scene she'd ever done and it was the first sex scene I'd ever shot. I was more nervous than her and I was driving her crazy because I was looking out for her. After four or five takes I just snapped out of it and said 'Well, I can't do this. I have to be the director. There's something wrong with the shot but I'm too nervous talking to Heather, I'm too boyish because I'm staring at her naked body. I have to get over this because I'm not doing my job. We did. And I got to give her directions. 'Heather, you gotta kiss him like a porn star, you're kissing him too nice. Be nasty.' You get into the groove and it becomes like any other scene.
Censorship Blues
“We had a few hassles with the MPAA, which is the rating board of America. We didn’t have to lose much. At the time it was hellish to go through and I thought it was cutting up my baby. But then I stepped back and thought ‘Well this isn’t so bad. All we’re losing is a couple of frames of Mark’s ass.’ It’s not fucking up the story or losing the rhythm. About 85% of the script is in the film.”
Hard Eight
"The original title for my first film was Sydney. They thought it was a movie about Australia. I just said fuck off, you're just a fuckin' TV movie [referring to the release title Hard Eight]. It was released in America, got great reviews and nobody went and saw it."
Listen to What the Man Said…
“This has been huge. I knew it was a good movie but I didn’t think this and LA Confidential would be the best reviewed movies of the year. It made it into over 200 critics’ top ten lists. I knew it was good, but didn’t know it was that good.”
Burt and Warren
I sent Burt the script. Then I saw Striptease and it nearly made me not cast him. But I sent him the script, I met him and he said it's great, let's go. Then Warren Beatty called me up on the phone and wanted to talk. I was like 'you're wrong for this movie', but then a day later I was mesmerized by Warren and was like 'you're right for this movie, you must be in my movie' and he was like 'I don't want to be in your movie'.
A Titanic Decision
"Leonardo DiCaprio was my first choice for Dirk Diggler in Boogie Nights. I met Leo and ultimately he decided to do Titanic and that has worked out real well for him. Leo is still great, a good guy and a friend of mine. Mark is great and better than Leo would have been. Leo is better than Mark would have been in Titanic. So everybody ended up doing the right thing and I'm just happy that Mark is in it."
The Robert Altman Influence
“Who? Who? Never heard of him. Nashville never heard of it. Never even seen it. I wouldn’t know it if it hit me….I know every frame of that movie, it’s one of my favourite movies and certainly the ensemble storytelling influenced Boogie Nights. It’s funny because as much as I love Nashville it wasn’t like I set out originally to tell a Nashville-like story. Because that’s not the original Dirk Diggler story which was just about the one guy. But what happened was I fell in love with so many actors that stories multiplied and the more stories I heard about pornography I kept seeing this as a sign that I needed to use the Nashville model. I used three movies as templates and structure for my script. Goodfellas, Nashville, and Battle of Algiers. I love the idea of an ensemble movie, working on all cylinders at all times because it gets so many things going and it’s a challenge balancing all that.”
Influences
“The opening scene is not even remotely a homage to Goodfellas. There are a million other scenes that are homages but the opening scene has nothing to do with Goodfellas. I don't understand where people get it into their head that it is. I guess because it’s a nightclub and a long shot. But my inspiration for that shot came from Absolute Beginners, very glamorous. But the Scorsese influence came from the storytelling. Goodfellas is a movie about gangsters that somehow managed to become relatable an audience. So how do you tell a story to make these murderers, thieves and drug dealers acceptable to an audience. There’s something to be learned here because I’m making a movie about porno people who people don’t usually want to know anything about, so how do I tell a story about them to make them relatable.”
Loving Your Characters
“The balance was achieved because I knew I would not laugh too much at them because I had my friends playing the characters and I’m going to take care of the characters like I take care of my friends. When you hang out with your friends you laugh with them and you laugh at them, so I knew it was going to be okay. I love to fuck with Reilly as much as I love to protect him, so I knew I had the greatest defense mechanism built in already in terms of balancing that aspect of the story. There is an element of parody and I laugh as much at these people as I do with them. Ultimately I love them, so I know it’s going to be okay. So I don’t have to work on that aspect of the story, it just built in.”
What's Next?
You’ll just have to see (motioning towards his sleeves). I have a few tricks up my sleeve.”
Saturday, February 28, 1998
Interview: "20 Questions"
Playboy Magazine, Written By David Rensin
February ??, 1998
For 27-year-old director Paul Thomas Anderson, the thrilled critical response to his film Boogie Nights - the story of an innocent young man whose foot-long love gland transforms him into a porn star of the late Seventies and early Eighties - must make the sophomore director feel like he's similarly endowed. The film is based on a short Anderson made when he was 17, called The Dirk Diggler Story. Ten years later, its screen history. In the interim Anderson made another short, Cigarettes and Coffee that got him into the Sundance Institute's Filmmaker's Workshop and that led to his first feature, Hard Eight. Starring Samuel L. Jackson and Gwyneth Paltrow, it was retitled Hard Eight and quickly faded away. We asked Contributing Editor David Rensin to talk with Anderson as Boogie Nights went into wide release. Rensin says, "We met at a popular Valley deli, where the waitresses knew and adored Anderson. He sat down, rummaged into his huge briefcase for his glasses, and with a smile announced, "Let me wash my hands before I begin the interview." I think that he also washed them afterward.
1. You wait until the end of Boogie Nights to show Dirk Diggler's 13-inch cock. Did you ever think of revealing the goods sooner?
In the earliest assembly of the movie, we showed it in his first sex scene. At the time, I wasn't sure if it was to get it out of the way. But when I watched the film, I realized it had to be saved for the end. Metaphorically, it's the come shot. It's everything you could hope for from a movie ending. David Mamet once said, "The last five seconds separates the men from the boys." I took that quote to heart and ran with it.
February ??, 1998
For 27-year-old director Paul Thomas Anderson, the thrilled critical response to his film Boogie Nights - the story of an innocent young man whose foot-long love gland transforms him into a porn star of the late Seventies and early Eighties - must make the sophomore director feel like he's similarly endowed. The film is based on a short Anderson made when he was 17, called The Dirk Diggler Story. Ten years later, its screen history. In the interim Anderson made another short, Cigarettes and Coffee that got him into the Sundance Institute's Filmmaker's Workshop and that led to his first feature, Hard Eight. Starring Samuel L. Jackson and Gwyneth Paltrow, it was retitled Hard Eight and quickly faded away. We asked Contributing Editor David Rensin to talk with Anderson as Boogie Nights went into wide release. Rensin says, "We met at a popular Valley deli, where the waitresses knew and adored Anderson. He sat down, rummaged into his huge briefcase for his glasses, and with a smile announced, "Let me wash my hands before I begin the interview." I think that he also washed them afterward.
1. You wait until the end of Boogie Nights to show Dirk Diggler's 13-inch cock. Did you ever think of revealing the goods sooner?
In the earliest assembly of the movie, we showed it in his first sex scene. At the time, I wasn't sure if it was to get it out of the way. But when I watched the film, I realized it had to be saved for the end. Metaphorically, it's the come shot. It's everything you could hope for from a movie ending. David Mamet once said, "The last five seconds separates the men from the boys." I took that quote to heart and ran with it.
Friday, February 27, 1998
Interview: "Do The Hustle"
Total Film Magazine UK, Written By Cam Winstanley
February ??, 1998
He's arrived. Boogie Nights has catapulted an ex-teen star onto Hollywood's hot list, showcasing his turn as a thrusting young trouser serpent called Eddie, sucked into the world of '70s porn. Director Paul Thomas Anderson tells how he made a funny, honest mainstream patch of the film biz.
Dog-eared stroke mags stuffed under mattresses. Fuzzy videotapes featuring fat Germans energetically servicing busty farmgirl types ("Ja, ja, ja! Ich kommen!") Men with scruffy moustaches peering around rickety doors, enquiring, "Mind if I join in?" Well-thumbed pocket-sized magazines containing 'all genuine' letters that start with phrases like "I'd always dreamt about sex with identical twins, but never imagined that it could happen to me."
Pornography is something that men are usually cagey and embarrassed about. They enjoy it, for the most part, and like to consume as large an acreage of fleshy skin tones as they can, but one with provison - no one else really knows about it. Not friends, not lovers, and certainly not parents.
Director Paul Thomas Anderson stands alone in that he's not afraid to proclaim his fascination with porn - in a two-and-a-half hour movie. It follows the life of teenage dishwasher Eddie Adams (Mark Wahlberg) as he becomes porn megastar Dirk Diggler in a series of flicks directed by old time sleaze-merchant Jack Horner (Burt Reynolds), and is as fascinating and funny as it is horrifying. Hold your head up high, and share your sins, Mr Anderson...
We heard you'd seen your first porn flick at the age of nine. How?
February ??, 1998
He's arrived. Boogie Nights has catapulted an ex-teen star onto Hollywood's hot list, showcasing his turn as a thrusting young trouser serpent called Eddie, sucked into the world of '70s porn. Director Paul Thomas Anderson tells how he made a funny, honest mainstream patch of the film biz.
Dog-eared stroke mags stuffed under mattresses. Fuzzy videotapes featuring fat Germans energetically servicing busty farmgirl types ("Ja, ja, ja! Ich kommen!") Men with scruffy moustaches peering around rickety doors, enquiring, "Mind if I join in?" Well-thumbed pocket-sized magazines containing 'all genuine' letters that start with phrases like "I'd always dreamt about sex with identical twins, but never imagined that it could happen to me."
Pornography is something that men are usually cagey and embarrassed about. They enjoy it, for the most part, and like to consume as large an acreage of fleshy skin tones as they can, but one with provison - no one else really knows about it. Not friends, not lovers, and certainly not parents.
Director Paul Thomas Anderson stands alone in that he's not afraid to proclaim his fascination with porn - in a two-and-a-half hour movie. It follows the life of teenage dishwasher Eddie Adams (Mark Wahlberg) as he becomes porn megastar Dirk Diggler in a series of flicks directed by old time sleaze-merchant Jack Horner (Burt Reynolds), and is as fascinating and funny as it is horrifying. Hold your head up high, and share your sins, Mr Anderson...
We heard you'd seen your first porn flick at the age of nine. How?
Wednesday, February 25, 1998
Interview: "Chicks...Dicks And Porno Flicks"
Uncut Magazine UK, Written By Simon Lewis
February ??, 1998
Welcome to the world of Paul Thomas Anderson, the director of Boogie Nights, the first essential film of 1998. Simon Lewis is the man in the mac with the Kleenex
Paul Thomas Anderson is Hollywood’s first true Generation X auteur. Scrawny, plaid-shirted and unkempt, son of a voice-over artist, a grade-school drop-out who enrolled at university but never attended, he should have ended up making lo-fi, Kevin Smith-style flicks. Instead, after an apprenticeship as a production assistant on various TV shows, the Sundance Filmmaker’s Workshop gave him the backing to produce last year’s Hard Eight, a hard-boiled redemption tale of gamblers starring Gwyneth Paltrow and Samuel L. Jackson that you probably won’t have seen (he was, he says, stiffed by the distributors). Its maturity and technical bravado won him studio backing he needed to make Boogie Nights, this year’s surprise Oscar contender and an epic journey through the myths of the Seventies’ porn industry. Gathering a funky ensemble cast including Mark Wahlberg, Heather Graham (last seen in Swingers), Julianne Moore and a wonderfully bemused William H. Macy, his biggest coup is a heartwarming, career-reviving performance from Burt Reynolds as patriarchal pornographer Jack Horner.
Simon Lewis: You shot instantly from obscurity to Oscar-level plaudits, and you’re still only 27. How the hell did you get so good so young?
February ??, 1998
Welcome to the world of Paul Thomas Anderson, the director of Boogie Nights, the first essential film of 1998. Simon Lewis is the man in the mac with the Kleenex
Paul Thomas Anderson is Hollywood’s first true Generation X auteur. Scrawny, plaid-shirted and unkempt, son of a voice-over artist, a grade-school drop-out who enrolled at university but never attended, he should have ended up making lo-fi, Kevin Smith-style flicks. Instead, after an apprenticeship as a production assistant on various TV shows, the Sundance Filmmaker’s Workshop gave him the backing to produce last year’s Hard Eight, a hard-boiled redemption tale of gamblers starring Gwyneth Paltrow and Samuel L. Jackson that you probably won’t have seen (he was, he says, stiffed by the distributors). Its maturity and technical bravado won him studio backing he needed to make Boogie Nights, this year’s surprise Oscar contender and an epic journey through the myths of the Seventies’ porn industry. Gathering a funky ensemble cast including Mark Wahlberg, Heather Graham (last seen in Swingers), Julianne Moore and a wonderfully bemused William H. Macy, his biggest coup is a heartwarming, career-reviving performance from Burt Reynolds as patriarchal pornographer Jack Horner.
Simon Lewis: You shot instantly from obscurity to Oscar-level plaudits, and you’re still only 27. How the hell did you get so good so young?
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