Paul Thomas Anderson | director
Interview
The filmmaker returns with ‘Licorice Pizza’, a romantic comedy of teenage love that tells the backstage of Hollywood
With ‘Licorice Pizza’, a romantic comedy of teenage love that takes place in 1973, its director Paul Thomas Anderson (California, 51 years old) returns to the land where he was born. Nominated for an Oscar for best picture, it tells the story of a 15-year-old con man named Gary, played by Cooper Hoffman, who meets a 25-year-old girl named Alana, a character in which Alana Haim makes her debut. Thus begins a love story that serves to tell the filth of the Hollywood backroom: the madness of William Holden, the waterbeds of producer Jon Peters, the chaos in the Encino hills and the summer nights listening to Vin Scully.
-The character of Alana Kane was inspired by the actress Alana (Haim)?
-She was inspired by the real life Alana, which horrified the lead actress because she is not that unstable. Alana, the character, is very unpredictable. She apparently seems to have grown up, but deep down she is very emotionally immature. That’s why her relationship with Gary works, because he’s a teenage hustler with a lot of street experience. Although he is ten years younger, he is much more emotionally mature than her. Alana’s character is the shadow of the real Alana.
-He has been accused of creating a complicated relationship due to the age difference, but he is also a clever portrait of love.
-It is a great dilemma, I know, and they have crucified me in the networks for it. It reminds me of what you would see in old Hollywood comedies: that impossible love between two characters who, whatever they do, stay apart. The fun is watching Gary keep trying. You get to witness, in all of his teenage perversion, how he tries while she refuses. That creates endless comedic and dramatic opportunities.
-The thin red line between adolescence and adulthood is processed not without difficulty with very childish scenes and others where cutting to the chase seems the most responsible.
-The interesting thing about their relationship is that what seems to be initially, it is not. We have a boy with a lot of charisma and wild romantic feelings and a young woman who looks like an adult but isn’t. The boy turns out to be a responsible teenager who takes care of her mother and her brother, who works and studies, while she lives trapped in a pathological emotional immaturity.
-Was it different directing rookies like Haim or Hoffman, compared to veterans like Sean Penn or Bradley Cooper?
-The first two or three days, Haim and Hoffman were so nervous that they could not stop shaking. The first scene we shot was the one with Bradley Cooper, so it made sense that they would be nervous. Once we get through that sequence, the three of us form a bond. They had survived Cooper, so they felt safer going into the next scene with Sean Penn.
-He seems to have a personal relationship with the framework of his stories; what Woody Allen did with New York, you do with the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles.
-I care a lot about where I come from, the people who live in the valley, I grew up there and I am educating my children there. I want my love for these corners to be evident on screen. I guess it’s a combination of joy and melancholy because many of the places I recreate no longer exist.
after the pandemic
«I don’t know if the public will return to the cinema, but I hope there is light at the end of the tunnel»
-Is it special to direct the debut of two young actors?
-It’s very exciting. I have known both of them since they were children and consider them members of my family. I know what I expected from them and how they have responded. I feel like a father taking his children to school for the first time.
fast consumption
-What do you expect for the future of cinema after the pandemic?
-The best thing about releasing a movie right now is that the movie studios are analyzing what it means to release now because nobody has a clue what is going to happen. In the film industry right now, we’re in no man’s land and it’s very exciting. It means that there is room to do things differently and in a new way.
– Do you think that the public will return to the movie theaters?
-We are so used to consuming things very quickly that it is difficult for us to stop and give the public a chance to breathe, or at least present the film in a more respectable way. Answering your question: I don’t know, but I hope there is light at the end of the tunnel.
-Are you nostalgic for the 70s, for the past?
-It is not necessary to go so far, I feel nostalgic for the life we had five years ago.