Licorice Pizza Trivia | 60 facts about the movie

Licorice Pizza is a 2021 American coming-of-age comedy-drama film written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson.

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1. Licorice Pizza is a 2021 American coming-of-age comedy-drama film.
2. It is written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson.
3. He also serves as one of the film’s producers and cinematographers.
4. The film stars Alana Haim and Cooper Hoffman in their film debuts, Sean Penn, Tom Waits, Bradley Cooper, and Benny Safdie.
5. Licorice Pizza was released in the United States in select theaters on November 26, 2021, and will reach its widest expansion release on February 11.
6. The film received acclaim from critics and received three awards from the National Board of Review, including Best Film.
7. It was also named one of the best films of 2021 by the American Film Institute.
8. It received four nominations at the 79th Golden Globe Awards, including Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy.
9. It also received eight nominations at the 27th Critics’ Choice Awards, including Best Picture and five nominations at the 75th British Academy Film Awards.
10. Leonardo DiCaprio’s father George DiCaprio portrays the man who sells Gary a waterbed in the film. George DiCaprio was a well-known figure in the Southern California underground art scene during the era depicted in the film.
11. Alana Kane’s father is played by Alana Haim’s real life father, Moti Haim. According to director Paul Thomas Anderson, all of Moti Haim’s lines were improvised. The scene in which Alana comes home and Moti exclaims, “What the fuck!” is a first take.
12. Alana’s family is played by her real life family members. She and her sisters are the members of Haim, a Grammy nominated rock band.
13. Paul Thomas Anderson previously directed a number of music videos for Haim, and when he was a child, his elementary art school teacher was Donna Haim, the mother of the girls.
14. This film was partly inspired by a crush he had on her when he was her student.
15. None of the younger cast members were aware that Bradley Cooper was involved in the film until he came charging at them in full costume as the cameras were rolling.
16. The final take used in the film where Jon Peters introduces himself and asks who is in charge was the first time Cooper Hoffman or Alana Haim saw him.
17. Whenever Alana is seen driving the truck, it is actually Alana Haim driving the truck, not a double nor a camera trick.
18. When Paul Thomas Anderson approached Jon Peters and described the scene in which he made him a character, Peters said that he would not have actually yelled at Gary had it happened in real life. He would, however, hit on Alana. As a result, Anderson wrote this into the film.
19. Cooper Hoffman is the son of the late Philip Seymour Hoffman, a frequent collaborator with Paul Thomas Anderson.
20. As is mentioned in the film, pinball was banned in Los Angeles from 1939 to 1973 on the grounds that it was legally a form of gambling.
21. Paul Thomas Anderson’s children appear in different scenes throughout the film. Most prominently, his eldest daughter is the teenage girl sitting next to Gary when he sees that Jack Holden is at the Tail ‘O the Cock restaurant.
22. Carol Burnett, along with her daughter Jody Hamilton, personally provided clips from The Carol Burnett Show (1967) for use in this film. Paul Thomas Anderson’s father, Ernie Anderson, was the announcer on the show from Season 8 onward.
23. The inspiration for the main plot of the film came to Paul Thomas Anderson nearly 20 years before the film was released. He was walking past a middle school in his Tarzana neighborhood when he saw a teenage boy attempting to flirt with a female staff member.
24. It made Anderson laugh to think about what would happen if a teenage boy asked an older woman out on a date only to have her call his bluff and show up.
25. This is Cooper Hoffman’s first acting role.
26. Cooper Hoffman had not planned on becoming an actor until Paul Thomas Anderson approached him with this script. According to Anderson, Hoffman was “was very hesitant and wanting to know more details. This is a very, very good indication of a strong, intelligent young man.”
27. The main influences on this film were American Graffiti (1973) and Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982). Fast Times was also set in the San Fernando Valley, and features a scene set in an actual Licorice Pizza record store.
28. Jon Peters tells Gary “He’s from the streets” multiple times. This is likely a reference to a famous story Kevin Smith has told about Peters when Smith was pitching his take on Superman Lives. Despite living in a lavish mansion, he repeated this saying to Smith multiple times.
29. The scene with the motorcycle was inspired by a story Paul Thomas Anderson had heard as a child involving Evel Knievel attempting to jump a number of vehicles on his motorcycle outside of a bar in the Valley, but instead of making the jump, he drunkenly crashed into a parked car before even making it to the ramp.
30. Licorice Pizza was also the name of a record store chain. Sam Goody bought it out.
31. Bradley Cooper plays real-life Hollywood producer Jon Peters, who was Barbra Streisand’s boyfriend during the time period shown. Peters produced A Star Is Born (1976), starring Streisand, while Cooper produced, co-wrote, directed, and starred in A Star Is Born (2018) alongside Lady Gaga. Jon Peters co-produced Cooper’s version of the film. Cooper has said that Peters’ contribution was in-name only, as he has become a controversial figure over the years, and only received credit because he owned the rights.
32. It was Sean Penn who suggested Tom Waits for the role of Rex Blau.
33. The movie Alana auditions for is based on Clint Eastwood’s Breezy (1973) which stars William Holden. The lines she and Jack Holden recite are taken word-for-word from Breezy (1973).
34. Paul Thomas Anderson began writing this screenplay after running into difficulty on another, more complicated script. When inspiration for this film began to flow quickly, he decided to make this his next film.
35. The term “Licorice Pizza” is slang for a vinyl record, particularly albums which were known as LPs for Long Play, hence Licorice Pizza. Also, the vinyl record is black, which is the color of licorice, and the shape is flat and round, like a pizza.
36. In reality, the television ads for the Joel Wachs campaign were directed by a then-unknown director named Jonathan Demme. Demme would go on to become one of the most successful filmmakers of the late 20th century, working with Gary Goetzman (the real-life inspiration for Gary Valentine) on many projects. Demme was Paul Thomas Anderson’s idol as a teenager, mentor as a young filmmaker, and friend as an adult. Anderson’s previous film, Phantom Thread, was dedicated to Demme after his death in 2017, and Demme’s grandson, Dexter Demme, appears in the very first shot of this film.
37. Gary’s character is based on Gary Goetzman and many of the incidents that occur in the film come directly from stories that Goetzman told to Paul Thomas Anderson.
38. Cooper Hoffman’s mother, Mimi O’Donnell appears as one of the reporters interviewing Joel Wachs in his first appearance in the film.
39. Lance Brannigan is loosely based on Tim Matheson, who starred with Gary Goetzman in the film version of Yours, Mine and Ours (1968).
40. Cooper Hoffman’s sisters appear in the film as cast members of the performance in New York City on the Jerry Best show.
41. The scenes involving Jerry Frick’s wives were inspired by stories that Paul Thomas Anderson’s mother-in-law, Kimiko Rudolph, told him in regards to the casual racism she faced as a young woman.
42. Frick’s second wife shares the same first name with Kimiko, and the real life Kimiko appears in the Jack Holden restaurant scene, alongside her husband Richard Rudolph and many of their grandchildren.
43. Paul Thomas Anderson said that he had been directing Cooper Hoffman his entire life, in home movies with Anderson’s children.
44. According to Hoffman’s grandmother Marilyn O’Connor, Anderson and Philip Seymour Hoffman, Cooper’s father, “were probably the very very best friends. They did everything together.”
45. Bradley Cooper had spoken in interviews of his desire to work with Paul Thomas Anderson for over a decade before this film was released.
46. The film is dedicated to Robert Downey Sr., making it the 4th time Paul Thomas Anderson has dedicated a film to a recently deceased filmmaker.
47. The other filmmakers honored were: Ted Demme (Punch-Drunk Love), Robert Altman (There Will Be Blood), and Jonathan Demme (Phantom Thread).
48. When Jon Peters arrives at the gas station, the song “Indian Reservation” is playing on the radio and Peters mentions that they are in “Chumash territory.” The Chumash are a Native American tribe whose origins trace back to the San Fernando Valley.
49. The character Mary Grady is based on legendary Hollywood agent Sue Mengers, known for her tenacity and toughness as a trailblazing female agent.
50. Alana Haim’s character is Alana Kane. The last name is an homage to her friend and former actress Sammi Kane Kraft.
51. The character of Rex Blau appears to be based on Sam Peckinpah, who was known for his reckless behavior in public and had directed the real William Holden in The Wild Bunch (1969).
52. Paul Thomas Anderson’s fifth consecutive period film (his sixth in total).
53. The character of Jack Holden is based on William Holden, and the role that Alana is reading for opposite Holden is based on the film Breezy (1973). It has also been speculated that the character Rex Blau is based on legendary filmmaker John Huston.
54. Director Paul Thomas Anderson asked that for the film’s limited theatrical engagement to only screen the film at the Regency Village Theatre in Westwood. The venue is one of Anderson’s favorite theaters and until the film’s wide release on Christmas Day this is the only theatre you could see the film at in California
55. Paul Thomas Anderson’s first movie with Sean Penn, but his fifth time collaborating with a member of Penn’s family. His brother, Michael Penn, composed the music to Anderson’s films Hard Eight (1996) and Boogie Nights (1997), and their mother, Eileen Ryan, appeared in Magnolia (1999). Penn’s sister-in-law Aimee Mann also performed the song “Save Me” for Magnolia.
56. The reason that Paul Thomas Anderson and Michael Bauman took formal cinematography credits on this film and not on Phantom Thread was due to union rules in the US
57. According to co-cinematographer Michael Bauman, Paul Thomas Anderson did the color timing on this film himself
58. The Tail O’ the Cock was an actual restaurant in the San Fernando for decades before closing in 1987, with its most famous and longest-running restaurant located in Studio City, where Paul Thomas Anderson grew up.
59. Production of the film was halted for months in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting lockdown measures imposed in Los Angeles County, where the film was shot.
60. Paul Thomas Anderson’s idea to potentially cast Cooper Hoffman, after difficulty finding a lead actor, was solidified in his mind when he casually mentioned it to the Haim sisters and they all immediately agreed.