Licorice Pizza may be named after an old LA record store chain, but the name evokes the idea of things that shouldn’t go together, like the seemingly unlikely duo at the film’s heart. But for star Alana Haim, their connection is very simple. “The world is trying to separate two magnets.”
In the new film by Paul Thomas Anderson, first-time movie actor Haim (yes, of the band Haim) plays Alana, an aimless 20-something in the San Fernando Valley in the mid-70s who becomes fast friends with 15-year-old Gary (Cooper Hoffman), a high schooler and about-to-be-former child star with a big grin and a budding entrepreneurial streak. She described them as “incomplete puzzle pieces” but once they form their bond, “it’s unbreakable. … What Alana lacks in herself, Gary brings to complete her. And what Gary lacks, Alana helps him out. SO they’re these puzzle pieces who are incomplete until they find the right fit.”
Austin Chronicle: So how did you end up as the lead in a Paul Thomas Anderson movie for your first acting role?
Alana Haim: It’s crazy. My life keeps taking crazy twists and turns, and I knew Paul in a crazy way. We got introduced through a friend, but my mom had randomly taught him when he was very young, so my whole life I had heard about him. They obviously didn’t keep in touch, since he was about seven, but I was always a big fan of Paul’s and when we were finally introduced me and my siblings ended up telling him that my mother had taught him – and he had loved my mom, who was called Miss Rose at the time.
That really just started a relationship, and we were lucky enough to have Paul direct a number of our music videos, which was a dream. One day, he kind of turned to me and said, “I’m going to put you in a movie.” He didn’t ask, he just said, “I’m going to put you in a movie one day.” I thought that that was very funny. I just didn’t believe it. I went, “You’re going to put me in a movie. Oh, OK.”
I never count my chickens before they hatch, and I presumed that if Paul wanted to put me in a movie I would be an extra. I just wanted to work on his movie as a PA. I’d have gotten coffee for everyone on set.
“I was very honored that he was using my name[and] he was like, ‘How do you not see the writing on the wall that I want you to play Alana?’”
I’d also never read a script before, so to read something and have it be so exciting and be such a page turner when you’re just reading dialogue, it was so insane.
So I just called him and said how happy this script made me, and how I was so excited to see it when it came out, and I was very honored that he was using my name. I think that he was very annoyed. He was like, “How do you not see the writing on the wall that I want you to play Alana? How did you not see this coming?” I had no fucking clue, but he said, “Alana, will you play Alana?” and of course I said yes, because it’s Paul.
And then of course reality set in, and I was in my bed having a pure anxiety attack. “How can I do this? Can I even do this? I’ve never acted before, so how’s it gonna work?”
AC: Did Paul ever tell you, why you?
AH: I have to be honest, I’ve been asking myself that question since the beginning of this process. Why me? I don’t know. That’s really a question for Paul, but he really did see something in me that I had always really hoped would come out – just being independent and doing something on my own. But also just acting in general: I have always been such a fan of movies in general, and I have always felt that the closest I’ve ever got was maybe going to Universal Studios.
AC: You’re also working with your family, which must be a weird experience.
AH: I was so happy Paul had spent so much time with my family. We spent holidays together, including my parents, and Paul loves my parents. I think Paul especially loves my dad. He finds my dad really funny, and all of us do. My dad may be the funniest person on the planet – I mean, I’m partial because he’s my father, but I think my dad is so hilarious, and now the world gets to see how funny my dad is, which is the biggest gift.
AC: Did your mom have any stories about teaching Paul?
AH: She was in her early 20s when she taught Paul, and he was very young. What she said she loved about Paul was that he was honestly so creative. She would have lessons plans of what she was doing for that day and he would do his own thing. She loved that about him, because my mom loved to support any kind of creativity. She didn’t care for lesson plans – it was just a thing the school demanded that they do. She would rather have everybody run free, and whenever I meet anyone my mom taught they would always say she was playing Joni Mitchell records or Bonnie Raitt records or Eagles records in class. She was the fun class where everybody would come in an eat lunch in her room, because she would let them play with her record player, or play with her guitar.
AC: Aside from personal history in the script, there’s so much LA history built in, with these characters who are versions of real people in the Valley, like Bradley Cooper as Jon Peters. How much did Paul fill you in on who he was referencing with the characters, or was it just about who they are in Alana and Gary’s world?
AH: It was a mixture of everything. A lot of the crazy stories, Paul has a friend called Gary Goetzman that started a waterbed business, that found out that pinball was gonna to be legal and started one of the first pinball palaces in the Valley. These were all based on true stories that Paul heard. Maybe he tweaked it a little bit here and there to help the story, but even the Shabbat scene with me and my family, that’s a true story – although it wasn’t Shabbat, it was Passover.
Licorice Pizza is in cinemas now. Read our review and find showtimes here.
This article appears in December 24 • 2021.
