‘Phantom Thread’: Paul Thomas Anderson Wants to Work with Lesley Manville Again
While Paul Thomas Anderson‘s collaborations with Daniel Day-Lewis appear to be over, the director has a hunch he’ll be back on set with their fellow “Phantom Thread” Oscar nominee Lesley Manville. “I can’t shake the feeling that I have more business with Lesley,” Anderson told Austin Film Society founder and artistic director Richard Linklater Thursday at the Texas Film Awards. “Whatever that means.”
During the making of their six-time Academy Award nominee (and Best Costume Design winner), Day-Lewis created some tension by refusing to rehearse his scenes. “Lesley won’t be the one who says, ‘I want to rehearse,’ Lesley will go, ‘Whatever you boys want,'” Anderson explained. “There’s something so appealing about that. She’s like I’m going to come in and be great no matter what you guys do.”
“Powerhouse” Manville also impressed Anderson by wedging a few hours at Sunday’s Oscars between shooting her British sitcom “Mum” and co-starring with Jeremy Irons in a West End production of Eugene O’Neill’s “Long Day’s Journey Into Night.”
Anderson was on hand to accept the inaugural Jonathan Demme Award, named for the late “Silence of the Lambs” and “Philadelphia” visionary, who died in April. The fundraiser took place at nine-month-old AFS Cinema (aka “The Linc”), the city’s first full-time, non-profit art house theater. Guests included Sony Pictures Classics co-founder/co-president Michael Barker, “Silicon Valley” co-creator Mike Judge, Alamo Drafthouse Cinema founder Tim League, SXSW co-founder Louis Black, and “Girls Trip” actress Regina Hall.
Twenty years before releasing his feature debut, “Hard Eight” — when he was six years old — Anderson was asked to craft a want ad for his job-seeking future self. He told Linklater that he saved the completed assignment, which states, “My name is Paul Anderson. I’m a writer, and a director, and a special effects man. And you should hire me, because I know everything about everything.’ When I read it now, I apologize to my mother, I say, ‘You put up with that!'” Anderson’s daughter, Lucy, 8, seems to share his early instincts: they are currently collaborating on a screenplay.
Another 2018 Oscar contender, Timothée Chalamet, presented Variety’s One to Acclaim Award to Armie Hammer, his “Call Me By Your Name” paramour. “Now that we’ve been promoting this movie for two years, I’m all the better for it,” said Chalamet, thanking Hammer for epitomizing “somebody I want to become.”
Hammer guessed that the experience was “very surreal for Timmy,” telling him, “I’ve handed you about 20 of those over the course of the last couple months, so thank you now for being a part of handing me one, it’s kind of coming full circle.”
