Paul Thomas Anderson Biography, Age, Net worth, Career, Family, Awards and recognition

Paul Thomas Anderson Education

Paul Thomas attended a number of schools, including Buckley in Sherman Oaks, John Thomas Dye School, Campbell Hall School, Cushing Academy, and Montclair Prep. He then joined Santa Monica College before enrolling and spending two semesters as an English major at Emerson College where he was taught by David Foster Wallace, and only two days at New York University before he began his career as a production assistant on television films, music videos and game shows in Los Angeles and New York City. He later joined the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Paul Thomas was born to Edwina (née Gough) and Ernie Anderson. Ernie was an actor who voiced the voice of ABC and Cleveland television late-night horror movie host known as “Ghoulardi” (after whom Anderson later named his production company). He is the third youngest of nine children, he had a trouble relationship with his mother but he was so close with his father, who encouraged him to become a writer and a director.

Paul Thomas Anderson Wife

Paul Thomas Anderson Maya Rudolph and have been dating since 2001, but are not married. Still, the Saturday Night Live host and actress calls Paul her husband. They have four children together.

Paul Thomas Anderson Children

Paul Thomas Anderson has four children, Minnie Ida Anderson, Pearl Minnie Anderson, Lucille Anderson, Jack Anderson.

Paul Thomas Anderson Personal life

Paul Thomas grew up in the San Fernando Valley. He was involved in filmmaking from a young age and but he never had an alternative plan to directing films. He then made his first film when he was eight years old and started making movies on a Betamax video camera that his dad bought in 1982 when he was 12 years old.
His father, encouraged him to become a writer or director.

He later started using 8 mm film but realized that video was easier. At 17 he began experimenting with a Bolex sixteen millimeter camera. After years of experimenting with “standard fare”, he wrote and filmed his first real production as a senior in high school at Montclair Prep using the money he earned after cleaning cages per pet store. The film was a 30-minute mockumentary shot video called The Dirk Diggler Story (1988), about a pornography star; the story was inspired by John Holmes, who also served as a major inspiration for Boogie Nights.

Paul Thomas Anderson Career

Paul Thomas began was involved in film making at a young age. He made his first debut film when he was eight years old and he continued making movies on Betamax video camera that his dad bought in 1982 when he was 12 years old. He later started using 8 mm film but realized that video was easier. While at the Sundance Feature Film Program, Anderson already had a deal with Rysher Entertainment to direct his first full-length feature, Sydney, retitled Hard Eight. Erson, still had the workprint of his original cut, submitted the film to the 1996 Cannes Film Festival, where it was accepted and screened in the Un Certain Regard section. Erson managed to get his version released but only after he retitled the film, and raised the $200,000 necessary to finish it; Anderson and stars Philip Baker Hall, Gwyneth Paltrow and John C. Reilly contributed the funding.

In his review of the film, Chicago Sun-Times critic Roger Ebert wrote, “Movies like Hard Eight remind me of what original, compelling characters the movies can sometimes give us.” Anderson began working on the script for his next feature film during his troubles with Hard Eight, completing the script in 1995. After the film’s production, Reynolds refused to star in Anderson’s third film Magnolia. After the success of Boogie Nights, New Line told Anderson that he could do whatever he wanted for his next film and granted him creative control. Though he initially wanted to make a film that was “Intimate and small-scale”, the script “Kept blossoming”.

His associate stated that the idea for the film had been in Anderson’s head for about 12 years. Though the film makes no reference to the movement, it has “Long been widely assumed to be based on Scientology.” The Master received three nominations at the 85th Academy Awards: Joaquin Phoenix for Best Leading Actor, Philip Seymour Hoffman for Best Supporting Actor, and Amy Adams for Best Supporting Actress. His film marked the first time that Pynchon allowed his work to be adapted for the screen , and saw Anderson work with Phoenix for a second time. Following its release in December 2014, the film received two nominations at the 87th Academy Awards: Anderson for Best Adapted Screenplay and Mark Bridges for Best Costume Design.

In 2015, he directed Junun, a 54-minute documentary about the making of the album of the same name by Jonny Greenwood, Israeli composer Shye Ben Tzur, and a group of Indian musicians. The film stars Daniel Day-Lewis in his first acting role since Lincoln in 2012, and his self-proclaimed final performance in a film, following four decades in the profession. Erson’s regular cinematographer Robert Elswit was unavailable during production, and despite claims of Anderson acting as his own cinematographer on the film, there is no official credit.

In 2015, he directed Junun, a 54-minute documentary about the making of the album of the same name by Jonny Greenwood, Israeli composer Shye Ben Tzur, and a group of Indian musicians. Most of the performances were recorded at the 15th-century Mehrangarh Fort in the Indian state of Rajasthan. Junun premiered at the 2015 New York Film Festival.

His ninth film, Phantom Thread, set in the London fashion industry in 1954, was released in late 2017. The film stars Daniel Day-Lewis in his first acting role since Lincoln in 2012, and his self-proclaimed final performance in a film, following four decades in the profession. The cast also includes Lesley Manville, Vicky Krieps, and Richard Graham. Focus Features distributed the film in the U.S., with Universal handling international distribution. Principal photography began in January 2017. Anderson’s regular cinematographer Robert Elswit was unavailable during production, and despite claims of Anderson acting as his own cinematographer on the film, there is no official credit.

Paul Thomas Anderson Other work

In 2000, Anderson wrote and directed a segment for Saturday Night Live with Ben Affleck, “SNL FANatic”, based on the MTV series FANatic. He was a standby director during the 2005 filming of Robert Altman’s A Prairie Home Companion for insurance purposes, as Altman was 80 years old at the time. In 2008, Anderson co-wrote and directed a 70-minute play at the Largo Theatre, comprising a series of vignettes starring Maya Rudolph and Fred Armisen, with a live score by Jon Brion.

He has also directed music videos, usually for artists with whom he has collaborated on films, including Fiona Apple, Radiohead, HAIM, Joanna Newsom, Aimee Mann, Jon Brion, and Michael Penn. Jonny Greenwood of Radiohead, Mann, Brion, and Penn have scored or contributed music to his films, while Newsom acted in Inherent Vice. He directed a short film for HAIM in 2017, Valentine, featuring three musical performances from the band.

Paul Thomas Anderson Influences and style

Influences
He attended film school for two days, preferring to learn the craft by watching films by the filmmakers he liked, as well as watching films accompanied by director’s audio commentary. He has cited Martin Scorsese, Robert Altman, Jonathan Demme, Stanley Kubrick, Orson Welles, Max Ophüls and Robert Downey, Sr., as his main influences.

Paul Thomas Anderson Themes and style

He is known for producuing best films set in the San Fernando Valley with realistically flawed and desperate characters. Among the themes dealt with in Anderson’s films are dysfunctional familial relationships, alienation, surrogate families, regret, loneliness, destiny, the power of forgiveness, and ghosts of the past. He makes frequent use of repetition to build emphasis and thematic consistency. In Boogie Nights, Magnolia, Punch Drunk Love and The Master, the phrase “I didn’t do anything” is used at least once, developing themes of responsibility and denial.

His films are known for their bold visual style which includes stylistic trademarks such as constantly moving camera, steadicam-based long takes, memorable use of music, and multilayered audiovisual imagery. He also tends to reference the Book of Exodus, either explicitly or subtly, such as in recurring references to Exodus 8:2 in Magnolia, which chronicles the plague of frogs, culminating with the literal raining of frogs in the film’s climax, or the title and themes in There Will Be Blood, a phrase in Exodus 7:19, which details the plague of blood.

Within his first three films, Hard Eight, Boogie Nights and Magnolia, Anderson explored themes of dysfunctional families, alienation and loneliness. Boogie Nights and Magnolia were noted for their large ensemble casts, which Anderson returned to in Inherent Vice. In Punch-Drunk Love, Anderson explored similar themes but expressed a different visual style, shedding the influences and references of his earlier films, being more surreal and having a heightened sense of reality. It was also short, compared to his previous two films, at 90 minutes.

There Will Be Blood stood apart from his first four films but shared similar themes and style such as flawed characters, moving camera, memorable music, and a lengthy running time. The film was more overtly engaged with politics than his previous films had been, examining capitalism and themes such as savagery, optimism, and obsession. The Master dealt with “ideas about American personality, success, rootlessness, master-disciple dynamics, and father-son mutually assured destruction.” All of his films deal with American themes with business versus art in Boogie Nights, ambition in There Will Be Blood, self-reinvention in The Master.

Paul Thomas Anderson Frequent collaborators

Anderson frequently collaborates with many actors and crew, carrying them over from film to film. He referred his regular actors as “my little rep company” that has included John C. Reilly, Philip Baker Hall, Julianne Moore, William H. Macy, Melora Walters, and most prominently, the late Philip Seymour Hoffman. Luis Guzmán is also considered Anderson’s regular. Hoffman acted in Anderson’s first four films as well as The Master.

Except for Paul F. Tompkins, Kevin Breznahan and Jim Meskimen, who all had equally minor roles in Magnolia, There Will Be Blood had an entirely new cast. Anderson is one of three directors – the others being Jim Sheridan and Martin Scorsese – with whom Daniel Day-Lewis has collaborated more than once. Robert Elswit has been cinematographer for all of Anderson’s films except The Master, which was shot by Mihai Mălaimare Jr. and Phantom Thread which has no credited cinematographer. Jon Brion served as composer for Hard Eight, Magnolia and Punch-Drunk Love, and Jonny Greenwood of Radiohead for every film since. Dylan Tichenor edited Boogie Nights, Magnolia, There Will Be Blood, and Phantom Thread. He regularly works with producing partners, JoAnne Sellar, Scott Rudin, Michael De Luca and Daniel Lupi, as well as casting director Cassandra Kulukundis.

Paul Thomas Anderson Awards and recognition

Paul Thomas Anderson has been called “one of the most exciting talents to come along in years” and “among the supreme talents of today.” After the release of Boogie Nights and Magnolia, Anderson was praised as a wunderkind. In 2007, the American Film Institute regarded him as “one of American film’s modern masters.” In 2012, The Guardian ranked him number one on its list of “The 23 Best Film Directors in the World,” writing “his dedication to his craft has intensified, with his disdain for PR and celebrity marking him out as the most devout filmmaker of his generation.” In 2013, Entertainment Weekly named him the eighth-greatest working director, calling him “one of the most dynamic directors to emerge in the last 20 years.” Peter Travers of Rolling Stone wrote that “The Master, the sixth film from the 42-year-old writer-director, affirms his position as the foremost filmmaking talent of his generation. Anderson is a rock star, the artist who knows no limits.”

Other directors have also praised him. In an interview with Jan Aghed, Ingmar Bergman referenced Magnolia as an example of the strength of American cinema. Sam Mendes referred to Anderson as “a true auteur – and there are very few of those who I would classify as geniuses”. In his acceptance speech for the Golden Globe Award for Best Director, Ben Affleck said “Paul Thomas Anderson, who I think is like Orson Welles.” In 2016, he was the only person to win all three director prizes from the three major international film festivals (Cannes, Berlin, Venice).

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