When you watch the trailer for the new Paul Thomas Anderson film, “Licorice Pizza,” the setting of mid-‘70s Southern California brings to mind films of that era and others from decades ago. It’s clear the filmmaker was influenced by his own youth as well as other teen films. In a new interview with Variety, Anderson explains which films influenced his “Licorice Pizza” and explains how Sean Penn’s inclusion is a long time coming.
When asked about his film inspirations for his tale of a young teen in the San Fernando Valley in 1973, Anderson replied, “The two films that were in the back of my mind as touchstones were ‘American Graffiti’ and ‘Fast Times at Ridgemont High.’”
Interestingly, “Licorice Pizza” features the first collaboration between Paul Thomas Anderson and one of the stars of the latter feature, ‘Fast Times,’ Sean Penn. And according to the filmmaker, getting Penn to act in one of his films has been something he’s been trying to make happen since the ‘90s.
“I’ve been asking Sean Penn to be in movies for as long as I’ve been doing this,” explained the filmmaker. “I wanted him for ‘Boogie Nights’ in the part that Alfred Molina ended up playing in the firecracker scene. I talked to him around the time of ‘Punch Drunk Love’: I had another kind of concoction of how that might go, and he was going to be the foil against Adam Sandler, but that didn’t work.
Anderson added, “What’s nice about his performance [in ‘Licorice Pizza’] is there’s nothing funny about it. Sean does not play one thing for the gag. He plays the utmost seriousness and delusions of an actor. That’s hilarious.” For context, in the film, Penn plays an alcoholic actor named Jack Holden, who Anderson admits is a stand-in for the real-life William Holden.
You can see if the wait for Sean Penn to appear in a Paul Thomas Anderson film was worth it when “Licorice Pizza” debuts in select theaters on November 26.