Paul Thomas Anderson

Born: June 26, 1970 (28)

Founder

Ghoulardi Film Co.

Paul Thomas Anderson wrote the first version of “Boogie Nights” when he was a 17-year-old high school student in Studio City.

A decade later, New Line Cinema produced the hit film, which immediately sent the career of writer-director Anderson soaring. Now, at 28, he has his own production company and is working on one of the most anticipated movies of the year, “Magnolia,” starring Tom Cruise and Julianne Moore.

Anderson, a film junkie who had to repeat one year of high school after flunking out, developed his passion for filmmaking at an early age. His father was Ernie Anderson, a voiceover artist who for years was an ABC network announcer and encouraged his son to pursue movie-making.

Anderson learned much of what he knows about filmmaking on his own or from how-to books checked out of the public library. He began his career as a production assistant on independent films and music videos, preferring that route to academia. “Film school is a complete con,” he says.

Some of the hands-on training came while he traveled around the country videotaping auditions of precocious children for a game show called “Quiz Kids Challenge.” His big break came when his “Cigarettes and Coffee” (made for $20,000) was screened as part of the 1993 Sundance Festival Shorts Program. That led to an invitation to develop a feature at the Sundance Filmmakers Workshop the following year.

The resulting “Hard Eight,” a gambling story set in Reno starring and partly financed by Gwyneth Paltrow and John C. Reilly, was accepted at Cannes and released commercially to positive reviews.

Anderson says the idea for “Boogie Nights” came from growing up in the San Fernando Valley, the undisputed adult film capital of the world.

Originally called “The Dirk Diggler Story,” the “Boogie Nights” script was loosely based on the life of the biggest porn star of the ’70s, John C. Holmes. When Anderson finally had a deal to make the film, he recruited Mark Wahlburg, a.k.a. teen heartthrob singer Marky Mark, to play Dirk.

Scott Smith