Lily Gladstone names her favourite filmmaker of all time
Starring opposite Leonardo DiCaprio in Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon, Lily Gladstone has worked with the best of the best and proven her place amongst them. Critical acclaim and award season buzz has surrounded her considered performance since the release of the film last autumn, and she seems like a likely and worthy contender to take home this year’s ‘Best Actress’ award at the Oscars.
She’s worked with filmmakers that many would consider to be favourites, from Scorsese to Taika Waititi, but they’re yet to forge a collaboration with their own favourite director: Paul Thomas Anderson. During a conversation with A.frame, Gladstone picked out Anderson’s 2012 feature The Master as one of her top five and shared her love for the man who helmed it.
“PTA is probably my favourite filmmaker,” Gladstone stated. It’s a love that she discovered through his 1999 drama Magnolia, which she recalls got her “addicted to him as a filmmaker”. When she later saw The Master, she was struck by the director’s ability to tackle complex conversations through cinema.
“I feel like there are huge conversations being had in that film that I really value,” she explained, “He’s talking about this pull between nature and control, and you could very easily try and codify it and say it’s an indictment of Scientology, but it’s not. It is, and it’s not. It lives in its own world.”
Released in 2012, the film starred Joaquin Phoenix as a veteran taken in by The Cause, a cult helmed by Philip Seymour Hoffman’s character Lancaster Dodd. Over a decade on from its release, the film remains just as adored by Anderson enthusiasts and cinephiles and is considered to be one of his best. Gladstone is no exception.
She believes the film to be “visceral”, crediting much of its impact to the “unapologetic” and “relentless” performances. Not only does it feature her favourite director at the helm, but it also stars her favourite actor, Hoffman.
“He was such a compassionate soul,” she shared, “You could see it in every performance that he gave, and you could also see his bravery in bringing out these dark elements of humanity and putting them on display where we could all see them and get to know these monsters.”
Gladstone’s Killers of the Flower Moon co-star DiCaprio was recently announced to star in an Anderson picture of his own, so we can only hope that she achieves the same feat. With his complex filmmaking style and her unparalleled on-screen presence, their creative collaboration would serve as a masterclass in cinema.
Revisit the trailer for The Master below.
