Alana Haim Would Relive Filming Licorice Pizza Every Day If She Could

By Zack Witzel

Alana Haim hails from the San Fernando Valley. It’s her residence. So, sweating within the streets of 1973 California as twentysomething Alana Kane in Licorice Pizza, Paul Thomas Anderson’s naturalistic new movie concerning the frenetic, ephemeral magic of youth? Completely regular.

“It’s fucking sizzling,” she tells MTV Information. “And that’s how I grew up. You by no means wore make-up as a result of it melted off your face. Every single day you have been operating round looking for a pool.”

However she’s a musician, not an actor.

Haim, her band along with her two older sisters, Danielle and Este, has been her full-time gig since at the least 2012. They’ve launched three albums, the newest of which, 2020’s Girls in Music Pt. III, snagged two Grammy bids, together with Album of the Yr. They’ve toured the globe, and subsequent yr, their just-announced run will hit world-famous venues Madison Sq. Backyard and the Hollywood Bowl.

Haim and Anderson had collaborated before, fashioning a visual language amongst corners of their own Los Angeles. “Valley youngsters all the time discover Valley youngsters,” she says. And he discovered one thing arresting within the guitarist, so he did what anybody would do. He wrote a film for her to steer.

And in that main position, her first, her magnetism blazes — beguiling sufficient to safe main nominations, together with a Golden Globe nod, as awards season positive aspects steam.

She’s an actor now.

Licorice Pizza follows Alana Kane’s sprinting friendship with Gary Valentine (Cooper Hoffman, one other onscreen rookie), two charismatic wanderers embracing one another’s wide-eyed chaos by means of sun-stained, Nixon-era California. It contains appearances from Bradley Cooper, Sean Penn, Maya Rudolph, Tom Waits, and Benny Safdie — and even small turns from Haim’s sisters and oldsters.

On the eve of her thirtieth birthday, which she’d been feeling “type of emo” about — “I don’t know anybody that doesn’t get emotional round their birthday,” she says — Haim spoke with MTV Information about discovering her new residence on a movie set.

MTV Information: Initially, congratulations in your Golden Globes and Critics Alternative nominations.

Alana Haim: Thanks! Wild.

MTV Information: Together with your band Haim, you’ve had some expertise with main awards, even playing the Grammys final yr. The place have been you whenever you came upon you have been nominated?

Haim: You realize, I preserve my telephone on silent after I sleep, and I woke as much as perhaps like 75 calls from my mom, and I assumed somebody had died. When my siblings and I bought nominated for a Grammy, the identical factor occurred. I bought so many calls from my mother, pondering that someone had died. However I wakened and I known as her, and he or she was crying about Critics Alternative, and it was simply — it hasn’t actually hit me but. I don’t actually know, but it surely’s mind-blowing.

MTV Information: Paul Thomas Anderson allowed you somewhat little bit of artistic freedom in your efficiency as Alana Kane. Are you able to contact on what sort of enter you had within the growth of the position?

Haim: I really like making folks snicker. Throughout among the filming, I might have an concept, and Paul would get actually excited and be like, “Don’t inform me, simply do it.” It’s simply so loopy as a result of Paul is Paul, and for somebody like Paul to be like, “Do what you’re pondering” — I didn’t anticipate him to be that approach. Additionally, I’ve by no means acted earlier than, so I didn’t actually know what I used to be doing. However I might have these concepts, and a whole lot of the concepts bought into the movie. Every single day I might anticipate Paul to — if he put his arms up and cried with laughter, then I did my job for the day.

MTV Information: Licorice Pizza, as a reputation, is a callback to each an outdated Southern California record store from the Seventies and ’80s and simply the overall vibe of the time interval. Had been there particular songs or artists who helped you seize Alana’s essence within the film? What would she have been listening to after an extended day taking highschool youngsters’ footage or promoting waterbeds?

Haim: In all probability “Band of Gold” by Freda Payne. That was an enormous one. I listened to that just about each day on the set. I imply, not as a result of I assumed it was something for Alana Kane. I simply love that music. My dad and mom have been of their twenties within the early ’70s, and if I may have a magic mirror to see one thing from the previous, it could be my dad and mom dancing. It’s somewhat bit extra Boogie Nights than Licorice Pizza, however they might go to bounce golf equipment. They might go to the disco. That was their factor. They knew all of the dances. They knew all of the songs. And I actually lived that all through my entire life, so moving into 1973 wasn’t so out of my depth. I had recognized a lot concerning the ’70s, however positively each day I wakened listening to “Band of Gold.”

MTV Information: There’s this key second within the film whenever you’re performing nose to nose with Sean Penn, and later within the sequence Tom Waits enters. You’ve labored with legends earlier than, from Taylor Swift to Charli XCX to Tame Impala to Rostam, however I’d contemplate them extra your contemporaries — what’s it like to sit down throughout from folks whose work you’ve been conscious of most of your life and find yourself working as friends?

Haim: Um, loopy?! Insane. There was a whole lot of pinch-me moments throughout this entire course of. I nonetheless can’t imagine it. Thank god there’s video proof of the whole lot that I did as a result of I really feel like if there wasn’t, I might in all probability in a few years not even imagine it myself. Think about being at a desk with Sean Penn and likewise Tom Waits, who will not be solely an unbelievable actor, however the most effective musician of all time and finest songwriter and simply all-around superb man. However I used to be simply, , driving the wave. That’s as bizarre California jargon as I can clarify it. I used to be simply actually driving the wave of being like, “If I freak out and give it some thought an excessive amount of, I in all probability will cry or pee my pants.”

MTV Information: It’s evident what sort of pleasure you discover in dwell efficiency; you’re usually bouncing round onstage, feeding off and amping up the group’s power. The power on a movie set is totally different, so I’m questioning how you bought your self right into a headspace the place you might ship your efficiency, particularly on what I’d suppose is a small set, made even smaller by COVID restrictions.

Haim: My mother says I got here out of the womb with a smile on my face. And that’s simply me. We have been all type of going by means of this collectively. Me and my siblings get to speak about this for the remainder of our lives, and that’s so, so particular to me. Actually I believe the efficiency that I gave was simply because I used to be blissful. Although Alana Kane screams and stomps her ft and tries to make her presence recognized along with her household, though she appears like she’s by no means being heard, and he or she’s the one individual in her household that may’t get it collectively — which is so not me, I don’t suppose I’ve ever screamed at my father earlier than filming that scene after the Shabbat. I don’t actually scream at folks as a result of I really like all people round me. I simply need all people to be blissful. I used to be blissful each day, and I want I may do it one million occasions. I want that was my Groundhog Day, filming this film. I want I may simply relive it each day.

MTV Information: It’s a movie kind of about household, each blood-related and self-created, if you happen to’ll pardon the rhyme. What would you say are among the advantages of working with your loved ones?

Haim: I’ve all the time labored with my household, so I’m very fortunate that it wasn’t so out of my consolation zone. Having my dad act was a special expertise. He’s by no means acted earlier than. However having him on set, I believe the factor that felt nice was once we truly did sit right down to do the Shabbat dinner scene, it actually did really feel like there have been no cameras there. It simply felt like we have been truly having Shabbat. Nevertheless it was nice having all of Paul’s youngsters within the film, and Maya [Rudolph, Anderson’s partner]. And Cooper [Hoffman]’s mother was within the film. So have been his siblings. It actually did really feel like we have been on a bizarre household trip again in time. I’m so fortunate that I bought to go searching on set, and I just about knew 90 p.c of the folks there. Every single day I used to be unhappy to go away set. I used to be like, “OK, if I’m going residence, I’m gonna sleep, however then I get to come back residence — I get to go truly residence the following morning.” I imply, it was fucking nice.

MTV Information: Haim simply announced the One Extra Haim Tour for 2022, the place you’ll be again on the highway for the primary time since early 2020. What are you wanting ahead to about taking part in in entrance of hundreds of individuals once more?

Haim: After we made Girls in Music Pt. III, we actually did have the dwell present in thoughts. And that is our largest tour that we’ve ever completed. We’re taking part in exhibits that I by no means in my wildest desires would ever suppose we might play. We’re taking part in Madison Sq. Backyard and the Hollywood Bowl, that are venues when rising up you’re like, “There’s no approach. Come on. There’s no approach! You’re not gonna play these venues.” And we’re! I really feel like I mentioned “pinch-me moments” already, however discuss a pinch-me second, with the ability to play MSG and play a report that we’re so extremely happy with. Simply get me on the highway!