Paul Thomas Anderson's CV is unmatched by his peers. He has made Boogie Nights, Magnolia, The Master, Phantom Thread and, above all, There Will Be Blood, a dark, epic masterpiece starring Daniel Day Lewis. His latest is the coming-of-age story Licorice Pizza; a gorgeous slow dance through the 1970s California of his childhood.
The title is slang for vinyl and fits the mood of this lush young love and friendship story. It's about 25-year-old Alana (Alana Haim, from the band Haim) and 15-year-old Gary, who is infatuated with her (Cooper Hoffman, the son of Philip Seymour Hoffman, who was directed by Anderson five times before he died in 2014).
It is inspired by Anderson's teenage years trying to impress his older sisters' friends, and the casting reveals the Hollywood world he has long inhabited. In cameos you will spy George DiCaprio (Leo's dad) and Sasha Spielberg (you-know-who's daughter).
Anderson's life has been lived in entertainment — his dad was a DJ in Cleveland who moved to Los Angeles. He knows this world where fame and power define someone and how sad it can be. Day Lewis's character embodied that in There Will Be Blood, and it is there in Licorice Pizza too — take a bow, Sean Penn, playing a famous old actor who flirts with the far younger Alana.
"There's a version of that scene where the lechery of the older male movie star could take a turn for the worse and get very scary," Anderson says. "But the more realistic turn is that you can never underestimate the ego of an ageing actor. He is more likely to recite lines from his films to Alana than try to seduce her. He really is just looking for an audience."
And what about when Alana's bum is slapped by a creepy photographer, or she is leered over by Bradley Cooper's sex-mad mogul? Is that speaking to our modern times? "It would be a mistake to attach a view from 2021 on to a film about 1973," Anderson says with a sigh, a little irritated. "That is a road to a brick wall."
Anderson has a welcoming, digressive intelligence and is more fey than I imagined. When we meet in London he is neatly dressed, calm and softly spoken, with mannerisms that remind me of Michael Stipe, the REM singer.
As conversation turns to the young Hoffman, he suddenly seems shy, like I've waltzed into something personal. What does Cooper Hoffman share with his dad? "Talent. Generosity." While Anderson admits that some movie-goers will know who Hoffman is, he says others won't: "A 17-year-old will just see a handsome kid who stands on his own without a shadow near him. Cooper taught me that the way kids are when they are born is how they will be when they are 18. When I started having children, I thought, 'Oh, maybe they'll change.' But I look back and realise they've been the same this entire time."
Anderson's career shows this to be true. He started making films when he was four, messing about with a camcorder. Years of practice counts and at just 27 he directed Boogie Nights, a romp through Californian porn in the 1970s that was so seedy you could smell it. The film, which he began writing when he was 16, became as famous for Mark Wahlberg's epic prosthetic member as for Anderson's intricate, sweeping style.
Now he is 51 and married to the comedian and actress Maya Rudolph, with four children and a career of self-sustaining creativity only really matched among his contemporaries by Wes Anderson and Quentin Tarantino. So when he discusses recent films he enjoyed, it comes as a shock that he mentions Venom: Let There Be Carnage, a derided recent Spider-Man spin-off.
"It's really good!" he says. "And one of the best things is that it is very short. Some bigger blockbusters have got into this unfortunate length problem." He giggles, acknowledging that only two of his nine films are under two hours. "I'm one to talk. My films are generally way too long and can be exhausting."
Anderson's admiration for Venom marks him out from other directors who for years have derided superhero movies. "I did have a snobby period in my life when I was a teenager," he says. "If someone was talking about a film they liked, I'd go out of my way to not like it. But that's an adolescent approach and I don't give a shit any more."
Does he not worry that Marvel has brought the cinema that grown-ups love — and Anderson grew up with — to its knees?
"I don't buy it. Look, I grew up watching Star Wars. Alec Guinness was in it and he was great. Look at the cast of Marvel films. How many more great actors do you need? Look at Benedict Cumberbatch. He is Doctor Strange, but he's also in The Power of the Dog." He pauses. "So f*** off!"
A few weeks ago Anderson was asked by his dentist if he'd seen the new Michael Keaton film. The confused director mumbled that Keaton was actually in Dopesick, a TV series. "Whatever! The movie Dopesick!" the dentist replied. Anderson realised that his definition of a film has changed for ever. He doesn't believe the medium of film is dead, just that there are some new, great, longer movies that happen to be television series. Indeed, he says that it was patronising when film people watched great TV like The Wire and acted surprised: "It was like saying, 'Oh, my cousin's actually good at football! That pipsqueak is good!' " he says with a laugh.
He talks about a Tom Petty documentary in which the singer said some artists make great work when their life is hard, but Petty said writing came to him when he was happy. Anderson is trying to figure out which suits him. "I shudder to think what was on my mind when I was making The Master," he says about his 2012 film about a religious cult, basically Scientology. "There is a lot of darkness in that. Then I look at Licorice Pizza and I'm clearly happy."
Anderson lets the world in when he's writing. "There Will Be Blood was written after September 11, 2001, and the world was wild." Yet the world is wild now and he has written not the horror of There Will Be Blood but the warmth of Licorice Pizza? "Yes, but you can't stop what's coming. I just go on a feeling. Writing's instinctual."
