Paul Thomas Anderson

Early life

Paul Thomas Anderson was born in Studio City, Los Angeles, on June 26, 1970, to Edwina (née Gough) and actor Ernie Anderson.

Anderson has three siblings and five half-siblings from his father's first marriage. He grew up in the San Fernando Valley and was raised Catholic. He had a troubled relationship with his mother, but was close with his father, who encouraged him to become a writer or director. He attended private schools, including the Buckley School, John Thomas Dye School, Campbell Hall School, Cushing Academy and Montclair College Preparatory School.

Anderson was involved in filmmaking from an early age, and started making films on a Betamax videocamera his father bought in 1982. After years of experimenting with "standard fare", Anderson wrote and filmed his first real production as a senior at Montclair Prep, using money he earned cleaning cages at a pet store. The film was a 30-minute mockumentary about a porn star, The Dirk Diggler Story (1988), with a story inspired by John Holmes, who also inspired Boogie Nights (1997), the feature-length adaptation of The Dirk Diggler Story.

Career

1990s

Anderson attended Santa Monica College before spending two semesters as an English major at Emerson College, where he was taught by David Foster Wallace. Anderson attended New York University for two days before he began his career as a production assistant on television, films, music videos, and game shows in Los Angeles and New York City. Anderson decided to make a 20-minute film as his "college".

On a budget of $10,000 (which came from gambling winnings, his girlfriend's credit card, and money his father had set aside for him for college), Anderson made Cigarettes & Coffee (1993), a short film connecting multiple storylines with a $20 bill. It screened at the 1993 Sundance Festival Shorts Program. He planned to expand it to feature-length, and was invited to the 1994 Sundance Feature Film Program. Michael Caton-Jones served as Anderson's mentor. He saw him as someone with "talent and a fully formed creative voice, but not much hands-on experience", and gave him some hard and practical lessons.

While at Sundance, Anderson had a deal with Rysher Entertainment to direct his first full-length feature film, Sydney, which was retitled Hard Eight. After he finished the film, Rysher reedited it. He had the version released, but only after he retitled the film, and raised the $200,000 necessary to finish it. Anderson, Philip Baker Hall, John C. Reilly, and Gwyneth Paltrow contributed to the final funding.

Anderson worked on the script for his second film while working on the first one, and provided breakout roles for Mark Wahlberg and Julianne Moore. At the 70th Academy Awards, the film was nominated for three awards, including Best Supporting Actor (Reynolds), Best Supporting Actress (Moore), and Best Original Screenplay.

After the success of Boogie Nights, New Line told Anderson he could do whatever he wanted for his next film and granted him creative control. It was inspired by the music of the singer-songwriter Aimee Mann, who wrote songs for its soundtrack. At the 72nd Academy Awards, Magnolia was nominated for three awards, including Best Supporting Actor (Tom Cruise), Best Original Song ("Save Me"), and Best Original Screenplay. After its release, Anderson said, "Magnolia is, for better or worse, the best movie I'll ever make".

2000s

After the success of Magnolia, Anderson said he would make his next film around 90 minutes and would work with Adam Sandler. Punch-Drunk Love (2002) follows a beleaguered entrepreneur in love with his sister's co-worker. A subplot was inspired by civil engineer David Phillips. At the 2002 Cannes Film Festival, Anderson won the Best Director Award and was nominated for the Palme d'Or. Time Out included it among the best films of the 21st century. Karina Longworth wrote, "Anderson's cracked ode to the transformative power of love in a world that actively mocks sensitivity is perhaps his most original work".

There Will Be Blood (2007), Anderson's fifth film, is loosely based on Upton Sinclair's 1927 novel Oil! It follows a ruthless oil prospector exploiting the Southern California oil boom in the early 20th century. Against a $25 million budget, the film earned $76.1 million worldwide. At the 80th Academy Awards, it was nominated for eight awards, tying with No Country for Old Men. Anderson was nominated for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay, losing all three to the Coen Brothers for No Country for Old Men. Paul Dano received a nomination for the BAFTA Award for Best Supporting Actor. Anderson was nominated for the Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directing – Feature Film.

There Will Be Blood was regarded by some critics as one of the greatest films of the decade, with some further declaring it one of the most accomplished American films of the modern era. David Denby of The New Yorker wrote, "Anderson has now done work that bears comparison to the greatest achievements of Griffith and Ford", while Richard Schickel proclaimed it "one of the most wholly original American movies ever made." In 2017, New York Times film critics A. O. Scott and Manohla Dargis named it the "Best Film of the 21st Century So Far".

2010s

In December 2009, Anderson worked on a new film about a "charismatic intellectual" starting a new religion in the 1950s. An associate of Anderson's stated that the idea for the film had been in his mind for twelve years. The Master was released on September 14, 2012, in North America, and received critical acclaim. The film follows an alcoholic World War II veteran, who meets the leader of a religious organization. Though the film makes no reference to the movement, it has "long been widely assumed to be based on Scientology." At the 85th Academy Awards, the film was nominated for three awards, including for Best Actor (Joaquin Phoenix), Best Supporting Actor (Hoffman) and Best Supporting Actress (Amy Adams).

Production of the film adaptation for Thomas Pynchon's novel Inherent Vice began in May and ended in August 2013. The film marked the first time that Pynchon allowed his work to be adapted for the screen, and had Anderson work with Phoenix for a second time. The supporting cast includes Owen Wilson, Reese Witherspoon, Jena Malone, Martin Short, Benicio Del Toro, Katherine Waterston and Josh Brolin. Following its release in December 2014, the film was nominated for two awards at the 87th Academy Awards, including for Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Costume Design.

Anderson directed Junun, a 2015 documentary about the making of the album by the composer and Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood, the Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich, the Israeli composer Shye Ben Tzur, and a group of Indian musicians. Most of the performances were recorded at the 15th-century Mehrangarh Fort in Rajasthan. Junun premiered at the 2015 New York Film Festival to a generally favorable reception.

Anderson's eighth film, Phantom Thread, set in the London fashion industry, was released in December 2017. Day-Lewis starred, after his previous film Lincoln. The cast includes Lesley Manville and Vicky Krieps. Focus Features distributed the film in the United States, with Universal Pictures handling international distribution. Principal photography began in January 2017. Elswit was absent during production, and despite claims of Anderson acting as a cinematographer on the film, no official credit was given. On February 16, 2019, Elswit said he would not work with Anderson on his next films. Phantom Thread was nominated for six awards at the 90th Academy Awards, winning one for Best Costume Design, and the National Board of Review chose it as one of the top ten films of 2017. It has since been considered to be one of the best films of the 2010s.

In 2019, Anderson directed the short music film Anima, starring the Radiohead singer, Thom Yorke, and featuring music from Yorke's album Anima. It was screened in select IMAX theatres on June 26 and released on Netflix on June 27. It was nominated for Best Music Film at the 2020 Grammy Awards.

2020s

Anderson's ninth film, Licorice Pizza, was released in December 2021. It was nominated for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay at the 94th Academy Awards. It follows a teenage actor (Cooper Hoffman) in love with a photography assistant (Alana Haim). In 2022, Anderson rewrote portions of Ridley Scott's 2023 film Napoleon after its lead actor, Joaquin Phoenix, who had worked with Anderson, threatened to leave the project.

On January 10, 2024, it was announced that Leonardo DiCaprio, Regina Hall, and Sean Penn were cast in Anderson's upcoming film One Battle After Another, based at Warner Bros. Pictures. The film is a loose adaption of Thomas Pynchon's novel, Vineland, with only a few narrative similarities; as Anderson described it, "with [Pynchon's] blessing" he "stole the parts that really resonated with me and started putting all these ideas together." Anderson first expressed a desire to adapt the novel around the release of Inherent Vice. Production began in California that month with a reported $100million budget. In the following February, Licorice Pizza actress Alana Haim and singer Teyana Taylor had joined the cast. One Battle After Another was released on September 26, 2025, to critical acclaim. It grossed $22 million at the box office in its opening weekend and achieved a $200 million total gross, and became Anderson's highest-grossing film.

Other work

In 2000, Anderson wrote and directed a segment for Saturday Night Live with Ben Affleck, "SNL FANatic", based on the MTV series FANatic. He was a standby director during the 2005 filming of Robert Altman's A Prairie Home Companion for insurance purposes, as Altman was 80 years old at the time. In 2008, Anderson co-wrote and directed a 70-minute play at the Largo Theatre, comprising a series of vignettes starring Maya Rudolph and Fred Armisen, with a live score by Jon Brion.

Anderson has directed music videos for acts including Fiona Apple, Radiohead, Haim, Joanna Newsom, Aimee Mann, Jon Brion and Michael Penn. He directed a short film for Haim in 2017, Valentine, featuring three musical performances. In 2023, Anderson collaborated with Yorke and Greenwood again on the videos for "Wall of Eyes" and "Friend of a Friend", by their band the Smile.

Influences and style

Influences

Anderson attended film school for two days, preferring instead to learn by watching the films of directors he liked along with the accompanying director's audio commentary.

Themes and style

Anderson is known for films set in the San Fernando Valley with realistically flawed and desperate characters. Among the themes dealt with in the films are dysfunctional families, alienation, regret, Anderson makes frequent use of repetition to build emphasis and thematic consistency. In Boogie Nights, Magnolia, Punch Drunk Love, and The Master, the phrase "I didn't do anything" is used at least once, developing themes of responsibility and denial. Anderson's films are known for their bold visual style memorable use of music, which chronicles the plague of frogs, culminating with the literal raining of frogs in the film's climax, or the title and themes in There Will Be Blood, a phrase in Exodus 7:19, which details the plague of blood.

Within his first three films, Hard Eight, Boogie Nights, and Magnolia, Anderson explored themes of dysfunctional families, alienation, and loneliness. In Punch-Drunk Love, Anderson explored similar themes, but expressed a different visual style, shedding the influences and references of his earlier films, being more surreal and having a heightened sense of reality. It was also short, compared to his previous two films, at 90 minutes.

There Will Be Blood stood apart from his first four films, but shared similar themes and style, such as flawed characters, moving camera, memorable music, and a lengthy running time. The Master dealt with "ideas about American personality, success, rootlessness, master-disciple dynamics, and father-son mutually assured destruction." All of his films deal with American themes, with business versus art in Boogie Nights, ambition in There Will Be Blood, and self-reinvention in The Master.

Collaborators

Anderson frequently collaborates with many actors and crew, carrying them over on each film. He has referred to regular actors as "my little rep company", including John C. Reilly, Philip Baker Hall, Julianne Moore, William H. Macy, Melora Walters, and Philip Seymour Hoffman. Luis Guzmán is also considered an Anderson regular. Hoffman acted in Anderson's first four films There Will Be Blood had an entirely new cast. Anderson is one of three directors – the others being Jim Sheridan and Martin Scorsese – with whom Daniel Day-Lewis has collaborated more than once. Robert Elswit served as cinematographer for Anderson's films through Inherent Vice, except for The Master which was shot by Mihai Mălaimare Jr. Jon Brion served as a composer for Hard Eight, Magnolia and Punch-Drunk Love, and Jonny Greenwood of Radiohead for every film since. Dylan Tichenor edited Boogie Nights, Magnolia, There Will Be Blood, and Phantom Thread. Anderson regularly works with producers, JoAnne Sellar, Scott Rudin, Michael De Luca, and Daniel Lupi, and casting director Cassandra Kulukundis.

Filmography

Main article: Paul Thomas Anderson filmography

Personal life

From 1997 to 2002, Anderson dated singer-songwriter Fiona Apple. Anderson is in a relationship with actress and comedian Maya Rudolph, with whom he has four children. Anderson is vegan.

Awards and recognition

Main article: List of awards and nominations received by Paul Thomas Anderson

Anderson has been called "one of the most exciting talents to come along in years"

Other directors have also praised him. In an interview with Jan Aghed, Ingmar Bergman referenced Magnolia as an example of the strength of American cinema. Sam Mendes referred to Anderson as "a true auteur – and there are very few of those who I would classify as geniuses". In his 2013 acceptance speech for the Golden Globe Award for Best Director, Ben Affleck compared Anderson to Orson Welles. Anderson is the only person to win all three director prizes from the three major international film festivals (Berlin, Cannes, and Venice).

;Directed Academy Award performances Under Anderson's direction, these actors have received Academy Award nominations and wins for their performances in their respective roles.

Notes

References

Bibliography

References

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