Other actors/directors/etc. who mention PTA

[Shughes]

Xavier Dolan mentions PTA in a recorded Q&A that plays after his latest film Matthias & Maxime (very good and worth checking out), which is currently streaming on Mubi.com.

One of the questions is about other filmmakers Dolan admires and his first pick is PTA. He said he loves his world's, and that every film was different, and that PTA always surprises him.

[jviness02]

Conan O'Brien (whose podcast schtick, I've come to realize, I'm completely tired of) talks to Maya Rudolph.  He gushes about PTA during the wrap-up around the 1-hr mark.

https://omny.fm/shows/conan-o-brien-needs-a-friend/maya-rudolph

Really? That's weird. Surprised she likes him.


All joking aside, this is actually really cool because they don't really talk about each other much in interviews!

[kingfan011]

Conan O'Brien (whose podcast schtick, I've come to realize, I'm completely tired of) talks to Maya Rudolph.  He gushes about PTA during the wrap-up around the 1-hr mark.

https://omny.fm/shows/conan-o-brien-needs-a-friend/maya-rudolph

Really? That's weird. Surprised she likes him.


All joking aside, this is actually really cool because they don't really talk about each other much in interviews!

That is true they make sure to almost never talk about each other in interviews

[Lewton]

A couple of recent PTA-related tweets from M. Night Shyamalan:

[tweet]1301293121003761665[/tweet]

[tweet]1279047003255844864[/tweet]

[wilberfan]

Woman From a Magazine Chats With HAIM

Actually, HAIM's creative synergy with the storied director is obvious enough. "From the day we met him, it was just family vibes," says Alana. "Especially because he's with Maya," Danielle adds. "I think there's just such a mutual connection — we love a lot of the same shit." Boogie Nights was, after all, set on HAIM home turf. "Not that we were into porn," Alana laughs. "But it was fucking everywhere in the Valley."

There are good times to come. As well as a more longform collab between Alana and Anderson. In the meantime, though, it's all about staying at home on Facetime.

Everything's going to be alright. Put some music on. Make sure you're registered. Call your sisters. Definitely rewatch Boogie Nights. "I don't really understand how it's all going to work," says Danielle, "but I'm hopeful."

Source

[jviness02]

Adam Sandler talks about making PDL with Jason Batman, Sean Hayes and Will Arnett:



We've pretty much heard all of this before, but it sounds like all three of those guys would love to work with PTA. Who wouldn't?

[wilberfan]

Lesley Manville: 'I was always quite savvy'

In 2016, the director Paul Thomas Anderson called Manville to ask her if she would be interested in playing Cyril in Phantom Thread. "He said, 'Have a look at the script, if you've got a minute.'" She laughs. "If I've got a minute!" She had a minute, called him back, "and that was it, in the bag." Anderson came to London to meet her, bringing Daniel Day-Lewis with him. "We had a great night out. There was a little honesty bar up in the lounge of the hotel they were staying in. So we went out for dinner, came back and we raided the gins in the honesty bar. I mean, it was such a good night. I just thought, oh my God, in one fell swoop, I've got two incredible men in my life, who I just adored."

Manville thought about going to the parties after the ceremony, but Paul Thomas Anderson put her off. "I said to Paul, 'What's it going to be like at the Vanity Fair party?' He said, 'It's going to be like this, only it's going to be full of models.' I said, 'Oh, come on, let's not go'." Instead, she went for dinner with Anderson, his partner Maya Rudolph, Jonny Greenwood from Radiohead, who had composed the film's score, her sister Diana, and Alfie. "We sat in this lounge and had cocktails and omelettes. It was just lovely. It was perfect." She flew back to Britain, landed on Tuesday morning, and was in the theatre that night.

[kingfan011]

Lesley Manville: 'I was always quite savvy'

In 2016, the director Paul Thomas Anderson called Manville to ask her if she would be interested in playing Cyril in Phantom Thread. "He said, 'Have a look at the script, if you've got a minute.'" She laughs. "If I've got a minute!" She had a minute, called him back, "and that was it, in the bag." Anderson came to London to meet her, bringing Daniel Day-Lewis with him. "We had a great night out. There was a little honesty bar up in the lounge of the hotel they were staying in. So we went out for dinner, came back and we raided the gins in the honesty bar. I mean, it was such a good night. I just thought, oh my God, in one fell swoop, I've got two incredible men in my life, who I just adored."

Manville thought about going to the parties after the ceremony, but Paul Thomas Anderson put her off. "I said to Paul, 'What's it going to be like at the Vanity Fair party?' He said, 'It's going to be like this, only it's going to be full of models.' I said, 'Oh, come on, let's not go'." Instead, she went for dinner with Anderson, his partner Maya Rudolph, Jonny Greenwood from Radiohead, who had composed the film's score, her sister Diana, and Alfie. "We sat in this lounge and had cocktails and omelettes. It was just lovely. It was perfect." She flew back to Britain, landed on Tuesday morning, and was in the theatre that night.

For whatever weirdness that was between DDL and PTA (and I still maintain there was some awkwardness during the press run) Vicky and Manville seem to adore him. Manville still talks him up in every interview she gives.

[Alma]

Lesley Manville: 'I was always quite savvy'

Great interview. She's always been such a good actress, it's nice to see she's getting better roles than ever.

[Tdog]

For whatever weirdness that was between DDL and PTA (and I still maintain there was some awkwardness during the press run) Vicky and Manville seem to adore him. Manville still talks him up in every interview she gives.

I figure DDL was just mentally checked out and just really didn't want to do any promotion. He did 2 Q and A's and that was it for the whole press tour as far as I remember.

[Alethia]

Good ol' Melora!

https://www.rogerebert.com/interviews/being-human-is-heroic-melora-walters-on-waterlily-jaguar-drowning-magnolia-and-more

Relevant bits:

It's a rare privilege to talk to someone whose performance is the heart of a film I consider among my all-time favorites, and that is certainly true of "Magnolia." How did you approach portraying an abuse survivor and addict in a way that subverts caricature at every turn?

For me, as an actress, it's very important with any character I play to make her as human as possible, and to access anything I have within me, even if it's archetypal, which we've shared since the times of our ancestors. My job as an actress is to make someone human, not to "act." Paul Thomas Anderson is a genius, and when I read his script, I decided to just give him everything.

I know people who have battled addiction and survived, as well as people who have killed themselves. At that point, Philip Seymour Hoffman was very much alive, but I knew people before that who had a similar fate. I grew up in many different places, and I've seen people at their high points and low points. People may suffer over something that would make you and I scratch our heads, but you're not a bad person if it eats you alive. If you research trauma from a Jungian psychological point of view, there is an inevitable emptiness within damaged individuals that was never nurtured or helped. These people have a constant need for something that they can't believe in, even if it presented itself, as it does in the form of John C. Reilly's character, although Claudia does go for it in the end.

There's a constant voice in your head telling you, "I don't deserve this." Jung talks about addiction in terms of a need for spiritual connection, but again, I feel that is very simply a need to feel that you're connected, you're loved and you're nurtured. In her book, The Cat: A Tale of Feminine Redemption, Marie-Louise von Franz writes of how people who at a very early age lose their mother—it's normally the mother, but it could be a father—often have an emptiness within them as a result of this loss. It's very hard to operate in the world when nothing feels safe. I think that's essentially what happened to Claudia.

When I made "Boogie Nights," the other actors and I were invited onto actual sets to see what the world of the film we were portraying was like, but I didn't want to go. In the case of preparing for "Magnolia," I know people who were addicts, but I didn't want to go up to them and ask, "What's your story?", while watching their behavior and trying to emulate it. I wanted to get to the core, which I think is unconscious, and that oddly sets the real tone for this desperate isolation and alienation that cannot be filled.

Knowing people who have endured abuse, I have found myself in the position of John C. Reilly's character, attempting to care for someone who isn't ready for that connection.

Yeah, you can't function normally because everything is heightened. Everything feels like a life-or-death situation, which can also be a result of post-traumatic stress disorder. It's not a joke. Any minute, you feel as if a sniper shot or a bomb could go off. How do you make everything okay when that's what you know? I think what was so beautiful about Claudia, which Paul added in, was that she is oddly aware of this, when she screams at her father, "You think I'm a whore? I hate you!" There's a part of her brain that knows, and then there's that switch-off between the brain and the inherent feeling that this man is never going to love me.

I wrote a paper in college analyzing the aesthetics of that scene between Claudia and her father. The sunshine spilling onto him from your character's bedroom window almost resembles an interrogation light.

Yes. There's no resolution there. Later on, when he sees the picture of me as a little girl and his wife—my mother—confronts him, he's like, "I can't remember." Though it really does help when people actually say, "I'm sorry," it's heartbreaking because even if he were to apologize, the damage and the scar tissue cannot be taken away. Psychologically, you cannot remove the fact that someone who was supposed to take care of you wrecked you.

Speaking of heightened, the film's operatic nature is beautifully expressed in your coffee scene with the officer, where the brewing tension is accentuated by the "Habanera" from Bizet's "Carmen."

Though the opera wasn't playing when we were filming, I do remember thinking as Claudia during that scene, 'What am I supposed to do that's normal here because nothing is normal?' Life during the time of the coronavirus is a heightened state, and I think we're all seeing that nothing is normal, nothing is safe. The possibility of death is too close, which is also what my character senses in "Drowning". It is very hard to live a normal life with death sitting next to you. We all know that it's going to be there in our future, but it's difficult to function normally when that fact is constantly preoccupying our minds.

It's the awareness that anything you hold onto in life is intangible, which is philosophically a reality. Heraclitus talks about that when he says, "No man steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man." If you really choose to believe that, I think it could shatter you. When someone's senses are so heightened and their emotions are too on the surface, that's how it feels.

Just like the assassination in "Nashville" and the earthquake in "Short Cuts," the rain of frogs in "Magnolia" illuminates our interconnectedness by disrupting the routines of our lives, just as COVID-19 has for the entire human race.

Exactly. In the case of the virus, you are told what to do. You wear a mask, clean your hands, take a shower when you go home or you gargle with salt water. There are a few factual websites that are documenting the spread of the virus on a daily basis, and I've found myself keeping track of the numbers. Newscasters can say whatever they want, but a number is inarguable, as is an increase or decrease. This virus has been like a boulder. It's just going down the hill taking everything out, but that's the essence of nature. There's no emotion involved. A hurricane isn't like, 'Hooray! I just knocked out New Orleans!' It's just a hurricane. The fires in California have no emotional attachment to what they're destroying. That's very frightening. The frogs raining from the sky at the end of "Magnolia" very much elicit that feeling of incredulity we've been living with this year.

The final shot holding on your face as you look at the viewer and smile has a mystery to it that is evocative of the girl (Valeria Ciangottini) turning toward the camera at the end of Fellini's "La Dolce Vita."

Oh, I love the end of "La Dolce Vita"! Paul wrote in the script that Claudia looks at the camera and smiles at the end. For me, that was the most difficult scene, because how do you go from abject hopelessness to hope? But I really think the underlying theme of Paul's films, which is so beautiful, is love. There's the notion that each moment of love provides a possibility of hope. Even in "There Will Be Blood," after Daniel Plainview has "drank the milkshake," and says, "I'm finished!", there's something so beautiful about him sitting there in the midst of destruction. He realizes that he can't get more in blood than he is now, and to me, he has a moment of acceptance. Maybe there's hope for him, now that he's finally woken up. Of course, Daniel Day-Lewis can do no wrong, so that combination of him and Paul is the very definition of pure magic.

...and later...

I recently analyzed "The Master" in a virtual film class, and I like how your presence is felt in that picture, even though you remain offscreen.

Paul asked me to sing a version of "A-Tisket-A-Tasket," and I never say no to Paul. [laughs] "Melora?" "Yes, I'll do it!" "I haven't asked you yet." "That's okay—yes!" That's how I feel. I think that film is an incredible journey. I know he has all these references that he drew upon, but in the end, where Joaquin Phoenix's character is with that woman, all you see is this young man searching for love and acceptance who will do anything to have it.

His character is also reaching out for a connection while literally trying not to get submerged in the process.

Yeah, I think it is just an incredible film. It's a "master"-piece.

[wilberfan]

Good ol' Melora!

...I really think the underlying theme of Paul's films, which is so beautiful, is love.

Good ol' Melora, indeed!  That was wise, wonderful and profound.  Thanks for sharing.

[Drill]

[kingfan011]

Who is saying this and where is it from.

[Alethia]

It's Fincher baby