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PROFILES Paul Thomas Anderson The Master


Paul Thomas Anderson’s hugely anticipated The Master, starring Joaquin Phoenix and Philip Seymour Hoffman, had its world premiere in Venice before arriving here in Toronto. Anderson’s first feature since 2007’s Oscar winner, There Will Be Blood, tells the story of a damaged soldier in post-Sec- ond World War America who strikes up an unexpected friend- ship with the charismatic founder of a religious cult. The Weinstein Company han-


dles international sales and US distribution. Anderson’s next project is an adaptation of Thomas Pynchon’s Inherent Vice.


The heart of this film seems to be about a friendship between two disturbed men. That was what we talked about all the time. We were concerned with the love story between these two men, about how desperately attracted they are to each other and how good and bad they are for each other. It’s a romance that can never work.


Were these two characters the starting point? I don’t remember. I can’t even say for sure when we were making the film that the love story was the main focus. We pursued different ideas. There were roles in the script that became smaller as we went along. It didn’t have a real map. But Joaquin and Philip working together was the most


exciting thing for me. There weren’t five other stories, it was always about their characters.


Did you feel the shadow of the Church ofScientology over the project? How big a challenge was that? We’re living in an age when if someone gets a whiff of what you’re doing, it gets speculated


Josh Boone Writers


Writer/director Josh Boone makes his feature film debut with Writers, a semi-autobiographical film about a family of writers dealing with divorce. The film, which pre- miered here on Sunday, is sold by The Solution Entertainment Group (international) and CAA (US). eOne has Canadian rights.


What was your inspiration for Writers? Greg Kinnear plays a novelist who is estranged from his ex-wife and I guess I used this to work out feel- ings that I had about my parents’ divorce. The character Nat Wolff plays, Rusty, is exactly who I was when I was 16 years old. The movie is fiction, but it very much has a lot of me in it.


What elements of your own life did you insert into the story? I loved Stephen King when I was young because I wasn’t allowed to read him. I would tear the covers off Christian books and glue them to Stephen King books so I could get away with reading them with-


not exactly what happens in the movie, but I did a version of that just to try to tell that experience.


Writers Josh Boone n 16 Screen International at Toronto September 11, 2012


out getting busted. When I was 12 I wrote King a letter telling him how much I loved his books and how much they meant to me. I came home from school a couple of weeks later and my dad said: “There’s a box here from Stephen King.” And he had written me this beautiful letter inside the front cover of these books and he sent me a signed limited edition of one of his books. He was just so kind and my parents were so moved that they said: “It’s cool, you can read Stephen King now.” That’s


What was the most difficult part of film-making? There’s nothing I hate more than writing. It’s a means to an end. It’s the hardest part of the process. Truly, making the movie is like summer camp compared to the writing part. It’s just a struggle every day. You sit down and you do it and you’re by yourself and you’re doing it just so you can go actually hang out with other people and be social and make a movie together.


What’s next for you? I became pretty good friends with Logan Lerman, so I’m writing [a script] for him and one of my favourite actresses, Imogen Poots. I’d also very much like to do a Stephen King adaptation at some point. And that’s something he and I have been discussing. Hopefully at some point I can do that and fin- ish off my childhood dream. Regan Reid


Paul Thomas Anderson, left, with Joaquin Phoenix


about more than anticipated. When you hear that chatter it can get mildly frustrating. But now it seems people are seeing the film and realising it isn’t about Scien- tology. The biggest challenge is getting good material and to have more good days than bad days. It’s a miracle these things get


made — it doesn’t get easier. Each film has its own sets of challenges but Scientology was the least of our problems.


Is it true Joaquin went down the method route, spending three months as the character? Yes, the same thing happens with Daniel Day-Lewis. He creates the impression that he inhabits some- one else 24 hours a day. In fact, they have to interact with the real- ity of acting in a movie and that there is an outside world. It would be more accurate to say his con- centration level was incredibly high. There were very few times you didn’t feel like you were around his character. Andreas Wiseman


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