Of the many talents belonging to Paul Thomas Anderson, he’s been savvy at casting his films, always finding the right face and actor. This had led to long-term collaborators, such as the late Philip Seymour Hoffman, and short term ones too like Luis Guzman. While we’ll have to see where Jillian Bell winds up among the PTA players, clearly he’s currently enjoying working with her.
The “Workaholics” star played a small role in “The Master,” and he’s cast her again in his next effort, “Inherent Vice,” and the actress talked to Cosmopolitan about her character. “I have such a small part in the movie — I loved doing it, I would do anything for Paul Thomas Anderson because he’s Paul Thomas Anderson — but they just flew me in just to do a small part as this weird waitress. But I got to do a scene with Benicio Del Toro, who is honestly my favorite actor of all time,” she said, adding that Joaquin Phoenix is in the scene too. But how did Bell land on the radar of PTA in the first place?
“He saw me in’ Workaholics.’ He is a huge ‘Workaholics’ fan, I guess. I mean, his wife is Maya Rudolph, so of course he loves people who do comedy. But I guess he watches ‘Workaholics’ and, actually, Anders Holm is in ‘Inherent Vice’ as well and he’s in ‘Workaholics.’ So I think [Paul]’s trying to get all of us in there,” Bell added.
We have a feeling PTA will have a few more surprises up his sleeve as the movie approaches. “Inherent Vice” opens on December 12th in limited release, and will go wide in January 2015.