On The Record

For his latest masterpiece, Paul Thomas Anderson ransacks his own youth growing up in the San Fernando Valley. Total Film meets PTA and Valley girl Alana Haim, his rocking lead, to take their memories for a spin…

- By Jamie Graham

Midday. Paul Thomas Anderson has been up 10 minutes and he’s “fucking exhausted”. He’s been in London for three days now and has, he confesses, been “burning the candle at both ends”, doing Bafta Q&As for his new feature Licorice Pizza in the evenings, then using the days and nights to catch up with the many friends he made in the city while shooting his previous picture, Phantom Thread. Peeling the wrapper off an energy bar while seating himself down in an armchair at the Covent Garden Hotel, he adjusts his round, tortoiseshell spectacles and starts chomping hungrily. Around mouthfuls, he explains how he’s met the babies of a few of his London-based pals for the first time, having not had the chance to travel until now because of the pandemic.

He is, clearly, something of a softie. And also, Total Film suggests, an incurable romantic – after Doc’s sweet love for Shasta Fay in Inherent Vice and the twisted-but-meaningful romance between Reynolds Woodcock and Alma in Phantom Thread, he’s now, with Licorice Pizza, fashioned a blossoming (chaste) relationship between 15-year-old child actor-turned-hustling businessman Gary Valentine (Cooper Hoffman) and 25-year-old photographer’s assistant Alana Kane (Alana Haim). So is it true? Is the man known for making heavyweight dramas wrapped around volcanic performances really just a sweetie?