Paul Thomas Anderson
About
Biography
Biography
PAUL THOMAS ANDERSON (Director/Writer/Producer) has cemented himself as one of the 20th century's most ambitious and accomplished American filmmakers. For three decades, Anderson has directed some of Hollywood's biggest names and written groundbreaking stories, awarding him several international award wins and 11 Academy Award nominations for his onscreen work. Anderson is currently the only director who has won the Best Director prize from the "Big Three" world-renowned film festivals: Venice, Cannes, and Berlin.
Anderson first established himself in the film festival circuit, earning praise in 1993 for his debut short film "Cigarettes & Coffee" at the Sundance Film Festival. He soon followed up his success with Hard Eight (1996), his feature-length debut that expanded on "Cigarettes & Coffee." Making his first feature exposed him to the challenges of working with funders and fighting for final cut approval, an experience that would shape his visual style and cinematic voice, both merging seamlessly for his next film and breakout hit Boogie Nights (1997). The film earned Anderson his first accolades with the Academy while earning its star Burt Reynolds his first Oscar nomination.
Anderson's next film, and third feature, Magnolia (1999), continued to make him an awards contender as did his follow-up Punch-Drunk Love (2002). In 2007, the director firmly cultivated himself as one of Hollywood's most celebrated and influential directors with the release of his Oscar-nominated epic There Will Be Blood. His next several films—The Master (2012), Inherent Vice (2014), Phantom Thread (2017), and Licorice Pizza (2021)—have provided further insight as to why Anderson is considered the most eclectic and original filmmakers of his generation.
Born on June 26, 1970, in Studio City, CA, Anderson was raised in a showbiz household by his father, Ernie, a former horror-show host in Ohio and a successful voiceover artist best known for being the announcer on the television series The Love Boat and American's Funniest Home Videos. The younger Anderson grew up in the early days of VHS tapes, as his father was reportedly the first man on their block to own a VCR. Anderson learned to shoot and edit films on VHS after his father gave him a Betamax camera when Anderson was 12.
During his senior year of high school, Anderson produced his first substantial project, "The Dirk Diggler Story" (1988). The 32-minute short is a mockumentary chronicling the rise and fall of fictional pornstar Dirk Diggler, inspired by the real-life 1970s pornstar John Holmes. The short would later become the basis for Boogie Nights. After high school, Anderson briefly attended New York University, dropping out after only two days. He later began working as a production assistant for various television shows and made-for-TV-movies, while crafting what would become "Cigarettes & Coffee."
Five characters' lives intersect in a diner over a $20 bill in the 24-minute short. Anderson, then 23 years old, shot the film for around $20,000 using a borrowed camera on loan from Panavision. He filled out his cast by enlisting a network of professional actors he had connections with, including Philip Baker Hall, Miguel Ferrer, and Kirk Baltz. An Esquire feature story from 2008 documented how Hall had bonded with Anderson on the set of a PBS movie in which Hall starred and Anderson served as a PA. Hall remembered reading the script for "Cigarettes & Coffee" and knowing he had a "dazzling" story in his hands.
After the short's debut in the Sundance Film Festival's Shorts Program, Sundance invited Anderson to their 1994 Filmmakers Workshop, where he developed the short into the feature-length film Hard Eight. His feature stars John C. Reilly as John, a down-on-his-luck drifter who lost his money gambling in Vegas. Hall plays Sydney, an elderly gambler who helps John win the money he needs to travel home for his mother's funeral. The two become partners as John trains under the seasoned gambler, bonding as they navigate a criminal plot. The film, which also stars Gwyneth Paltrow and Samuel L. Jackson, premiered at the 1996 Sundance Film Festival under its original title "Sydney," before it screened at the Cannes Film Festival that spring.
Anderson used his next film to go "punk rock," as he recalled in a 1997 Los Angeles Times feature story. He expanded "The Dirk Diggler Story" into his 1997 film Boogie Nights, an ambitious tale that takes an unflinching look at the 1970s porn industry and its transition from mainstream cinematic "porno chic" into commodified VHS tape, all told through the eyes of an eager and determined rising star (Mark Wahlberg) and the intersecting lives of his colleagues. Anderson reunited with Hall and Reilly for the film and added a star who would become a frequent player in his subsequent films: Philip Seymour Hoffman. Boogie Nights earned actor Burt Reynolds his first and only Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor, while Anderson received his first nomination for Best Screenplay.
Production company New Line Cinema gave Anderson blind creative control to make whatever he wanted for his next project. That film would be Magnolia. Anderson told The New York Times in 1999 that he had put his heart and every "embarrassing thing" he wanted to say into the script. Like his previous film, Magnolia uses an ensemble cast of characters whose parallel lives in the San Fernando Valley collide through human action, chance, and divine intervention. The film was a critical success and went on to earn Oscar nominations for Best Supporting Actor (Tom Cruise), Best Original Song ("Save Me" by Aimee Mann), and Best Screenplay for Anderson. It received dozens of international award nominations and wins, including the Golden Bear prize for best film at the Berlin Film Festival.
For his next film in 2002, Punch-Drunk Love, Anderson wrote a romantic comedy-drama about a socially frustrated small business owner (Adam Sandler) harassed by his seven domineering sisters and riddled with insecurities. He tries to alleviate his loneliness by calling a phone sex operator, resulting in an extortion attempt that complicates a budding romance with a coworker (Emily Watson) of one of his sisters. Anderson specifically wrote the lead role for Sandler after recalling seeing a flash of the comedian's potential for dramatic performance in a skit on Saturday Night Love. The decision changed the course of Sandler's career, opening the door for more serious dramas and earning him Best Actor accolades. Punch-Drunk Love won Anderson the Best Director award at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival.
In 2007, Anderson released his fifth feature film, There Will Be Blood. His loose adaptation of Upton Sinclair's novel Oil! centers on Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis), a down-and-out silver miner who strikes black gold during Southern California's oil boom at the turn of the 20th century. Daniel's journey for wealth puts him in a battle of wills against a charismatic preacher (Paul Dano) who stands in the way of him tapping into a lucrative ocean of oil on the preacher's land. Anderson's dark, brooding character study was a massive success for the director and every major player in the film. There Will Be Blood was hailed by many as the best film of 2007. It earned eight Academy Award nominations, including one for Best Picture, and won two of the awards: Best Actor for Day-Lewis and Best Cinematography for Anderson's long-time collaborator Robert Elswit. The New York Times heralded the film as the "best movie of the new century."
The Master premiered five years after There Will Be Blood though Anderson had begun working on the script in 2009 with Hoffman, Joaquin Phoenix, and JoAnne Sellar, Anderson's ongoing producer since Boogie Nights, attached to the project. The period drama set in the 1950s follows a troubled WWII veteran (Phoenix) struggling to cope with post-traumatic stress disorder. He eventually meets Lancaster Dodd (Hoffman), the leader of a philosophical movement called "The Cause," and helps him spread his teachings across the country. The Master earned its three leads, including Amy Adams, acting nominations at the Oscars. Anderson's efforts won him the Silver Lion for Best Director at the 69th Venice International Film Festival, the oldest film festival in the world. Anderson collaborated with Phoenix once again in 2014 for his next film, Inherent Vice. Returning to the familiar landscape of Los Angeles at the dawn of the 1970s, the movie follows the story of a hippie private detective named "Doc" Sportello (Phoenix), who becomes embroiled in a botched kidnapping plot with a straitlaced police detective (Josh Brolin). The elliptical comedy-drama is based on the postmodern novel of the same name by Thomas Pynchon. Anderson scored an Oscar nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay, and the film topped more than two dozen critic's Top 10 Movies of 2014.
In 2017, Anderson's Phantom Thread opened in theaters. The film reunited Anderson with Day-Lewis, who announced during filming that he would retire from acting after completing the role. A drama set in the 1950s London fashion scene, Day-Lewis is the neurotic high-fashion designer Reynolds Woodcock whose blossoming relationship with a waitress (Vicky Krieps) is fraught with creative inspiration and volatile behavior. The film garnered more than 80 award nominations and multiple wins, including Best Director for Anderson at the National Board of Review and The New York Film Critics Circle. Phantom Thread received six Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture and Best Director, winning, appropriately enough, for Best Costume Design. Radiohead guitarist Johnny Greenwood, a composer for Anderson's films since There Will Be Blood, earned a Best Original Score nomination.
Anderson returned to stories based in the San Fernando Valley with his 2021 film Licorice Pizza, which follows the relationship between an aimless woman searching for fame (Alana Haim) and a teenage actor (Cooper Hoffman) who falls for her. The film garnered a BAFTA win for Best Original Screenplay for Anderson and earned three nominations from the Academy: Best Original Screenplay, Directing, and Picture of the Year. Licorice Pizza marked the feature film debuts of Hoffman, the son of actor Philip Seymour Hoffman, and singer/songwriter Alana Haim, one-third of the sister rock group Haim. Through her band, Haim worked previously with Anderson on several music videos and teasers he directed.
Anderson has directed 25 music videos beginning in 1997 with Michael Penn's "Try." Artists included in his roster over the years are Fiona Apple, Aimee Mann, Jon Brion, Joanna Newsom, Radiohead, Haim, and The Smile. He also directed the musical documentary Junun (2015), a look at the making of the album of the same name by a collective of musicians that included Radiohead's Greenwood, Israeli composer Shye Ben Tzur, and the Indian ensemble act Rajasthan Express, with Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich serving as producer. At the time of this writing, Anderson is working on his tenth movie, set to release in IMAX theaters in the summer of 2025. The movie will star Leonardo DiCaprio. The film will undoubtedly be the director's most grandiose film yet.
Filmography
Director (Feature Film)
Writer (Feature Film)
Producer (Feature Film)
Special Thanks (Feature Film)
Misc. Crew (Feature Film)
Cast (Special)
Life Events
