Paul Thomas Anderson: Blood, Sweat and Tears

"I think it was Albert Fall, who was asked to describe drainage before Congress," Anderson continues. "And his way of describing it was, 'If you have a milk shake and I have a milk shake, and my straw reaches across the room...' I'm sure I embellished it and changed it around and made it more Plainview. But Fall used the word 'milk shake,' and I thought it was so great. It was mad to see that word among all this official testimony and terminology — a fucking milk shake. I get so happy every time I hear that word."

Though we're past our scheduled time together, Anderson seems eager to keep going. We discuss a few shared obsessions — the Red Sox, and also Adam Sandler, to whom Anderson gave his greatest and most self-revealing role in Punch-Drunk Love, but who we agree was also excellent as the widower dentist in last year's Reign Over Me. We talk about movie critics, a few of whose opinions Anderson says matter to him a lot, though he prefers to read only the good reviews ("because no one's going to top the damage that I've done to myself in my head, and a little encouragement is good and can go a long way"). I ask if he could see himself directing another writer's screenplay, to which he says never say never, but adds that "it would take one of the best parts of the process away from me. Why would I let someone else do that?"

Kevin Scanlon

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• Paul Thomas Anderson
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Finally, Anderson confesses that, with the grueling labor of making an epic-scale period movie on a less-than-epic budget now behind him, he's actually a little bummed. "I've had such a hard time letting go of it. I don't think I have. I really wish that we were still doing it. It's horribly depressing, really, to get to the end of something. Nothing you do prepares you for that. No matter how many times you do it, you don't get used to the sadness — for me at least — of coming to the end of a film."

At least, I remind Anderson, spring training is just around the corner.

"I can't wait for it to start again," he says, and for a moment I'm not sure if he's talking about making movies, watching baseball, or both.