Background

Paul Thomas Anderson was born on June 26, 1970, in Studio City, California, United States. He is the son of Ernie and Edwina Anderson. He has four brothers, Richard, Ernest, Michael, and Stephen, and four sisters, Amanda, Kathryn, Elizabeth, and Victoria. His father was a radio and television personality, horror host, and announcer.

Education

Paul Thomas Anderson studied at several schools, such as Buckley in Sherman Oaks, John Thomas Dye School, Campbell Hall School, Cushing Academy, and Montclair Prep. He attended Santa Monica College and then studied at Emerson College. Anderson spent only two days at New York University.

Career

After The Dirk Diggler Story, Paul Thomas Anderson continued to make short films. He directed the drama short Cigarettes & Coffee, which was released in 1993. Starring Philip Baker Hall, the film revolves around five people who are connected through a twenty-dollar bill. His first successful feature film, Boogie Nights (1997), follows a group of professionals in the San Fernando Valley pornography industry from its heyday in the late 1970s until the rise of video causes its decline in the early 1980s. The central figure is Eddie Adams, a teenager (played by Mark Wahlberg) who is recruited by porn producer Jack Horner (played by Burt Reynolds). In the group of men and women with whom he works, Eddie finds a surrogate family to replace the loveless one in which he grew up. But his new family, if more caring in some respects, is no less dysfunctional than the old. This dysfunction most clearly shows in the latter part of the film, which is set in the 1980s.

Although more compressed in time than Boogie Nights - the action takes place over a period of hours rather than years - Magnolia (1999) is considerably more epic in terms of story. Once again, Anderson's setting is his native San Fernando Valley. His characters, who take part in four intertwined tales, include a man dying of cancer who wants to reconcile with his son (played by Tom Cruise), a misogynist who runs seminars teaching men how to seduce women. The man’s wife (played by Julianne Moore) originally married him for his money, but now that he is dying she realizes that she truly loves him. and seeks to prove it by having herself written out of his will before he dies. Another set of characters revolves around a quiz-style game show for children: the host is dying, also of cancer; one of his current contestants, a young boy, is cracking under the pressure that his father is putting upon him; a former contestant, now in his forties (played by William H. Macy) has never moved past his childhood successes; the host's estranged daughter, struggling with her own demons, is comforted by a police officer who knocks on her door.

Anderson's film Punch-Drunk Love (2002) first garnered attention for its counterintuitive casting: Anderson chose Adam Sandler, formerly known for his generally mindless comedic roles, to carry this serious film by playing a complex, conflicted, and even violent character. Paul Thomas Anderson’s fifth feature film, ‘There Will Be Blood’ (2007) was inspired by Upton Sinclair’s novel Oil! and starred Daniel Day-Lewis, Paul Dano, Kevin J. O'Connor, and Ciarán Hinds. The 2012 release The Master stars Joaquin Phoenix, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Amy Adams and was produced by Anderson, JoAnne Sellar, Daniel Lupi, and Megan Ellison. The film officially premiered at the Venice Film Festival. In 2014 he directed Inherent Vice.

Anderson directed Junun, a 2015 documentary about the making of the album by composer and Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood, Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich, Israeli composer Shye Ben Tzur, and a group of Indian musicians. Anderson's ninth film, Phantom Thread, set in the London fashion industry in 1954, was released in late 2017. His next film, Soggy Bottom (working title), was announced on December 18, 2019.

Achievements

• Paul Thomas Anderson has been hailed as being "one of the most exciting talents to come along in years" and as being "among the supreme talents of today." In 2004, Anderson was ranked 21st on The Guardian's list of the 40 best directors.
  
  In 2007, Total Film named him the 20th-greatest director of all time. In 2011, Entertainment Weekly named him the 11th-greatest working director calling him "one of the most dynamic directors to emerge in the last 20 years."

Works

More photos

• movie

  • Junun

    (In Spring 2015, Paul Thomas Anderson joined his close fri...)

    2015
  • The Master

    (Haunted by his past, WW-II veteran and drifter Freddie Qu...)

    2012
  • Boogie Nights

    (Set in 1977, back when sex was safe, pleasure was a busin...)

    1997
  • Magnolia

    (This sprawling character study follows 10 people whose da...)

    1999
  • Punch-Drunk Love

    (Barry Egan (Adam Sandler), the owner of a struggling vani...)

    2002
  • There Will Be Blood

    (A sprawling epic of family, faith, power and oil, There W...)

    2007
  • Inherent Vice

    (An inept, pot-smoking private detective delves into the d...)

    2014
  • Phantom Thread

    (Daniel Day-Lewis is a renowned dressmaker in 1950s London...)

    2017
  • Hard Eight

    (Before his commercial breakthrough with Boogie Nights (19...)

    1996

Religion

Raised a Catholic, Paul Thomas Anderson described his time in church as "dull, which is too bad because it’s not dull. The stories they were telling were good stories, they just… the music was kinda boring."

Views

Paul Thomas Anderson counts Martin Scorsese, Robert Altman, Jonathan Demme, Stanley Kubrick, Orson Welles, and Max Ophüls as his main influences as a filmmaker. He is a huge fan of Robert Downey Sr and has cited him as a major influence.

Quotations: "Screenwriting is like ironing. You move forward a little bit and go back and smooth things out."

"I am always looking for that nuance, that moment of truth, and you can't really do that fast."

"How do I respond to criticism? Critically. I listen to all criticism critically."

"My writing has a lot to do with who I am, and what my life is like, and my relationships to people."

"To make a film, the final big collaborator that you have is the composer."

Personality

Paul Thomas Anderson's favorite all-time film is The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948). He is a big fan of Adam Sandler and his movies.

Interests

• Writers

  Thomas Pynchon

• Sport & Clubs

  baseball, Los Angeles Dodgers, Boston Red Sox

Connections

Paul Thomas Anderson had previously dated singer-songwriter and pianist Fiona Apple. In 2001, he began a relationship with actress, comedian, Maya Rudolph. They have four children: Jack Anderson, Lucille Anderson, Minnie Ida Anderson, Pearl Minnie Anderson.

Father:

Ernie Anderson

Mother:

Edwina Anderson

Spouse:

Maya Rudolph

Brother:

Richard Anderson

Brother:

Ernest Anderson

Brother:

Michael Anderson

Brother:

Stephen Anderson

Sister:

Amanda Anderson

Sister:

Kathryn Anderson

Sister:

Elizabeth Anderson

Sister:

Victoria Anderson

ex-girlfriend:

Fiona Apple

Son:

Jack Anderson

Daughter:

Lucille Anderson

Daughter:

Minnie Ida Anderson

Daughter:

Pearl Minnie Anderson

Friend:

Christopher Nolan

Friend:

Aimee Mann

References

• Contemporary Authors
  2004
• Paul Thomas Anderson: Masterworks
  2020