Paul Thomas Anderson’s writing process for One Battle After Another was a long, layered act of excavation—equal parts reverence and rebellion. The film, loosely inspired by Thomas Pynchon’s Vineland, took shape over nearly two decades, with Anderson initially struggling to adapt the novel directly. “I loved that book,” he admitted, “but the problem with loving a book so much when you go to adapt it is that you have to be much rougher on the book to adapt it”.
That tension—between fidelity and freedom—became the engine of his process. Rather than a strict adaptation, Anderson began weaving together separate story fragments, eventually fusing them with select elements from Vineland, especially the father-daughter dynamic that anchors the film. His own experience as a father deepened this emotional core, allowing him to write from a place of lived resonance rather than literary homage.
Anderson’s process was modular and intuitive, often sparked by casting choices. He envisioned Leonardo DiCaprio and Sean Penn early on, letting their imagined voices shape the rhythm and tone of the dialogue. “It was impossible to not keep thinking of both of them [when writing],” he said, suggesting that character and actor became inseparable in his mind.
This fusion extended to the film’s structure, which Anderson likened to “putting a Lego together”—a process of assembling disparate emotional and narrative pieces until they clicked into place. Some sequences, like Benicio del Toro’s, were written in a single night over dinner, underscoring Anderson’s belief in spontaneity within a well-laid foundation.
Thematically, Anderson leaned into chaos and contradiction. One Battle After Another is a fever dream of revolution, paranoia, and paternal longing, and the writing reflects that tonal hybridity. He borrowed Pynchon’s absurdist spirit and disdain for authoritarianism, but filtered it through his own cinematic lens—one that privileges emotional clarity over narrative neatness. The result is a screenplay that oscillates between explosive action and intimate reflection, between satire and sincerity. Anderson’s writing process embraced this duality, crafting scenes that could hold both political rage and personal tenderness without collapsing under their own weight.
Throughout, Anderson remained open to discovery. He didn’t write with rigid outlines or fixed endpoints, but rather allowed the story to evolve through collaboration, casting, and lived experience. His process was less about control and more about curation—finding the emotional truth in each moment and letting it guide the next. This approach mirrors the film’s own arc: a former revolutionary, broken and stoned, must piece together his past to rescue his daughter and reclaim a sense of purpose. In many ways, Anderson’s writing journey mirrored Bob Ferguson’s—messy, haunted, and ultimately redemptive. The final script is not just a political thriller or a character study; it’s a testament to Anderson’s belief that story lives in the tension between what’s planned and what’s found.
Insights from Paul Thomas Anderson
On the impetus for the story…
I started working on this story 20 years ago with the goal of writing an action car-chase movie, and I returned to it every two or three years. At the same time, this was in the early 2000s, I had the notion to adapt Thomas Pynchon’s Vineland, a book about the 1960s, which he wrote in the `80s. So, I was trying to decide what the story meant another 20 years later. The third idea floating around in my mind at the time was a character, a female revolutionary. So really for 20 years I had been pulling on all these different threads, and in a way, none of them ever left me. Realistically, for me, Vineland was going to be hard to adapt. Instead, I stole the parts that really resonated with me and started putting all these ideas together. With his blessing.
On the film’s modern-day setting and locations…
This is the first film I’ve made in a long time that is contemporary, and that’s very freeing. It was a lot of fun because we could kind of go wild and just shoot what we wanted to shoot when we wanted to shoot it, rather than wait for period cars and things to roll up. We kind of had a free pass to get on with it and shape the story in different ways as we went along, and we went to many different communities, from El Paso, Texas to Eureka, California, and that fed us the story as well, those places. The kids at the high school dance in the film are the kids that go to that school. We went there to scout it out, recorded every song that they played, made note of everything they were wearing, and then brought them back and filmed their high school dance. It was a nice way to work, in terms of a contemporary story.
On what’s at the core of the film…
As an audience member, what I want to see is a story that I can relate to, that’s emotional. For me, that emotion usually comes from a story about family, from the ways in which we love and hate. I find it fairly impossible to keep up with the state of the world these days, so I think that, for me, it’s better to focus on the elements that never go out of style, that an audience really cares about. For this film that is really two things: Can this father find his daughter, and what does it mean to be a family?
On the character Bob Ferguson…
When we first meet him, Bob—he’s Pat then—wants to change the world. He is in love with Perfidia, but she breaks his heart into a million pieces. She leaves him stuck, unable to move forward, and with nothing to do with his broken heart but sit around and stew in it in one place for a long time. Sixteen years. As that time goes by, he’s not only getting older but also increasingly cranky and closed off. It’s those mundane battles of daily life that are wearing on him. No one, not even Bob, can outrun what’s inevitable. Now he is trying to be a good father and watch his daughter, Willa, and the next generation come up. But they’re not doing it like he did, like Perfidia did, like the revolutionaries he knew in the French 75 did, so it’s hard for him to understand, especially while he’s doing nothing but drinking and smoking pot and watching black-and-white revolutionary films from the `60s all day.
On finally working with Leonardo DiCaprio…
Working with Leo was amazing. It was everything that it had been cracked up to be. I think we really enjoyed working together and hope to do it again. It’s one thing when you kind of talk about making a movie, but then when you do it, when you get there on the first day—the first scene we shot was of Bob, stoned, talking to Willa’s teacher—within like five minutes I remember thinking this is going to be a very exciting 100 days. I understand star power. And he’s a terrific collaborator as well. He knows what questions to ask about the story, where there were things to be addressed. We had a terrific time.
On newcomer Chase Infiniti as Willa…
As soon as we started filming her scenes with Leo, I thought she might be nervous, that I should keep an eye on her. But she wasn’t nervous at all. Or maybe she was, but she didn’t show it. She was instantly a professional. And the work we got from her that day was something quite magical.
On Teyana Taylor as Perfidia…
Teyana was someone Leo and I talked about for a while. Once we had her on set, I quickly realized that Teyana is best when you give her the green light to cut loose. Let her do her thing and make sure you’re shooting it right.
On Sean Penn…
I’ve worked with Sean before, on Licorice Pizza, so I was glad to have him back. Senn is just at an age where for me, when I was starting out, he was this hero… I remember thinking, Wow, that’s an actor, that’s a man. He really brought layers to Lockjaw that I never anticipated.
On Benicio Del Toro’s character Sensei’s line coming into the script…
It’s a Nina Simone line… “I’ll tell you what freedom is. No fear. That’s what it is.” I hadn’t put it in the script, but it kept reverberating somewhere in the back of my mind, the further we got into production. Don’t be afraid. Keep going. It was so clearly a line to put into Benicio’s mouth. Actually, just as a philosophy for life and for work, it certainly holds true for me.
On delivering humor in an action/drama film…
The things I think are funny are the things I think are funny, it’s kind of that simple. When you’re on set and you are collaborating with actors, if they are trying to be funny, it’s not going to be funny. Generally, humor can come out of sincerity, or a dedication to something. Bob is very funny in this film just in his absolute, insane pursuit. He’s a bit hapless, so there’s humor that arises from that. There’s humor in the absurdity of human nature. There’s a certain amount of humor to Lockjaw just in how perverted he is, how confused he is, in his pursuit to be a member of the Christmas Adventurers Club. It’s so absurd. I find humor in peculiar places, for sure, and when you’re on set, if you’re not trying to make and out-and-out comedy, an actor will generally let you know if they are having to try too hard. I will say, though, it’s really nice to go for a cheap laugh if you have a silly idea. Just go for it.
On working with his creative team behind the scenes…
I’m very lucky to have worked with a lot of the same people for many, many years. The collaboration is the best part of making a movie—the camaraderie that you feel with the people that you’re collaborating with, the trust that you put in them, the way you admire and hold each other up when you’re tired or need support. It’s a team sport for sure, and I’m surrounding by people who I just love, that is a family. It’s the foundation of everything.
Paul Thomas Anderson, born on June 26, 1970, in Studio City, California, is widely regarded as one of the most distinctive and influential filmmakers of his generation. Raised in the San Fernando Valley, Anderson was immersed early in a world of eclectic characters and cinematic possibility—his father, Ernie Anderson, was a television personality known for hosting a late-night horror show as “Ghoulardi,” a name Paul would later adopt for his production company. Anderson’s passion for filmmaking emerged young; he began experimenting with video cameras and editing equipment in his teens, bypassing traditional film school after a brief stint at NYU. His early short films, including The Dirk Diggler Story and Cigarettes & Coffee, laid the groundwork for his debut feature Hard Eight (1996), which introduced his signature style: emotionally complex characters, long takes, and a bold visual language.
He broke through with Boogie Nights (1997), a sprawling, empathetic portrait of the porn industry in the late ’70s, followed by the ambitious ensemble drama Magnolia (1999) and the offbeat romantic comedy Punch-Drunk Love (2002). Anderson’s work deepened with There Will Be Blood (2007), a searing exploration of ambition and isolation, widely hailed as one of the greatest films of the 21st century. He continued to challenge narrative conventions with The Master (2012), Inherent Vice (2014), Phantom Thread (2017), and Licorice Pizza (2021), each marked by his fascination with flawed protagonists, emotional dissonance, and the American psyche. Known for his collaborations with actors like Philip Seymour Hoffman, Daniel Day-Lewis, and Joaquin Phoenix, and with composers Jon Brion and Jonny Greenwood, Anderson has also directed music videos for artists including Fiona Apple, Radiohead, and Haim. His tenth feature, One Battle After Another, is slated for release in 2025, continuing his legacy of cinematic risk and emotional excavation.
