Licorice Pizza

George DiCaprio, Leonardo DiCaprio's father, plays the man who sells Gary a waterbed in the film. During the period depicted in the film, George was a well-known figure in the Southern California underground art scene.

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Alana's family is played by her real-life relatives. She and her sisters are members of the Grammy-nominated rock band Haim. Paul Thomas Anderson had previously directed a series of music videos for Haim, and his elementary school art teacher as a child was the girls' mother, Donna Haim. The film was partly inspired by his love for her when he was her student.

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None of the young actors knew Bradley Cooper was in the film until he walked toward them in full costume with the cameras rolling. The final scene used in the film, in which his character Jon Peters introduces himself and asks who is in charge, is the moment Cooper Hoffman or Alana Haim saw him for the first time.

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When Paul Thomas Anderson approached Jon Peters and told him about the scene in which he becomes a character, Peters said that in real life he would not actually have yelled at Gary. He would have attacked Alana instead. Anderson consequently wrote that into the film.

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The film Alana auditions for is based on Clint Eastwood's Breezy (1973), starring William Holden. The lines she and Jack Holden say are taken word for word from that film.

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In one of the scenes in the truck, Alana says she is 28 but later says she is 25. This was a genuine mistake by Alana Haim. While shooting the scene she was so nervous that she accidentally revealed her real age instead of her character's age. When she noticed the mistake, she quickly corrected herself. The take was kept in the film.

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Whenever Alana is seen driving the truck, the person actually driving it is Alana Haim, not a stunt double or a camera trick.

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The motorcycle scene was inspired by a story Paul Thomas Anderson heard in his childhood: Evel Knievel tried to jump his motorcycle over several vehicles outside a bar in the Valley, but instead of jumping he was drunk and crashed into a parked car without even reaching the ramp.

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The character Gary Valentine is based on Hollywood producer and actor Gary Goetzman. Most of the events in the film come directly from stories Goetzman told Paul Thomas Anderson. Like Valentine, Goetzman began as a child actor and appeared in Yours, Mine and Ours (1968), a film about a family with 18 children (Christine Ebersole's character Lucy Doolittle is based on that film's star, Lucille Ball). Goetzman also opened a waterbed company and a pinball arcade, and once delivered a waterbed to Jon Peters's house.

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The inspiration for the film's main story came to Paul Thomas Anderson about 20 years before the film was released. While passing in front of a middle school in the Tarzana neighborhood, he saw a young boy trying to flirt with a female staff member. Anderson was amused by the thought of what would happen if a teenage boy asked out an older woman and she called his bluff and showed up.

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Real-life people portrayed in this film: * Jon Peters (Bradley Cooper) - Barbra Streisand's producer, hairdresser and boyfriend * Joel Wachs (Benny Safdie) - Los Angeles City Councilman * Jerry Frick (John Michael Higgins) - founder of the Mikado Hotel and Restaurant * Mary Grady (Harriet Sansom Harris) - talent agent and mother of Don Grady and Lani O'Grady * B. Mitchel Reed (Ray Chase) - prolific disc jockey * Fred Gwynne (John C. Reilly) - Munsters star (1964). Fictional characters in this film inspired by real-life people: * Gary Valentine (Cooper Hoffman) - based on actor and producer Gary Goetzman * Jack Holden (Sean Penn) - based on actor William Holden * Rex Blau (Tom Waits) - based on directors Mark Robson and John Huston * Lucy Doolittle (Christine Ebersole) - inspired by actress Lucille Ball * Lance Brannigan (Skyler Gisondo) - inspired by actor Tim Matheson.

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Most of the background actors consist of the main cast's friends and families as well as Paul Thomas Anderson's friends and family members.

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Cooper Hoffman had not planned to become an actor until Paul Thomas Anderson approached him with this script. According to Anderson, Hoffman "was very hesitant and wanted to know more details. That's a very good sign in a strong, intelligent young man."

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The main influences on this film were American Graffiti (1973) and Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982). Fast Times is also set in the San Fernando Valley and includes a scene set in a real Licorice Pizza record store. At the beginning of the film, Mike Damone (Robert Romanus) is seen walking past the Licorice Pizza store that was then located in the Sherman Oaks Galleria in the 1980s.

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Carol Burnett personally provided clips from The Carol Burnett Show (1967) for use in this film, together with her daughter Jody Hamilton. Paul Thomas Anderson's father, Ernie Anderson, was the show's announcer from Season 8 onward.

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"Soggy Bottom," the first brand name for the waterbed, was the film's working title.

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Paul Thomas Anderson's children appear in various scenes throughout the film. The most prominent is the young girl sitting next to Gary who sees Gary spot Jack Holden at the Tail 'O the Cock restaurant.

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Tail O'the Cock was a real restaurant in San Fernando for decades before it closed in 1987, and its most famous and longest-running location was in Studio City, where Paul Thomas Anderson grew up.

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At Paul Thomas Anderson's request, Licorice Pizza was finished entirely photochemically rather than going through a digital intermediate. The 70 mm prints were also blown up photochemically, and the digital and home video releases were created by digitally scanning and grading a photochemically timed interpositive, skipping any digital intermediate step.

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Bradley Cooper plays real-life Hollywood producer Jon Peters, who was Barbra Streisand's boyfriend during the period depicted. Peters produced A Star Is Born (1976), which starred Streisand, while Cooper produced, co-wrote, directed and starred in A Star Is Born (2018) alongside Lady Gaga. Jon Peters served as a co-producer on Cooper's version of the film. Cooper said Peters's contribution was in name only, because he had become a controversial figure over the years and received credit only because he held the rights.

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It was Sean Penn who suggested Tom Waits for the role of Rex Blau.

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The scenes featuring Jerry Frick's wives were inspired by stories Paul Thomas Anderson's stepmother, Kimiko Rudolph, told him about the everyday racism she encountered as a young woman. Frick's second wife shares the name Kimiko, and the real-life Kimiko appears in the Jack Holden restaurant scene along with her husband Richard Rudolph and many of their grandchildren.

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Joel Wachs's campaign television commercials were in reality directed by Jonathan Demme, then an unknown director. Demme went 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 in his youth, his mentor as a young filmmaker and his friend in adulthood. Anderson's previous film, Phantom Thread (2017), was dedicated to Demme, who died in 2017 at the age of 73, and Demme's great-nephew Dexter Demme appears in the film's first shot.

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Licorice Pizza was also the name of a record store chain. Sam Goody bought it.

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The scene in which Jon Peters (Bradley Cooper) arrives at the 76 gas station was not only the film's most extensive shoot but also its most expensive. The shoot was so important to Paul Thomas Anderson that he budgeted the other scenes accordingly.

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Paul Thomas Anderson began writing this script after running into difficulties with another, more complex screenplay. When inspiration for this film began to flow quickly, he decided to make it his next film.

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Cooper Hoffman's mother, Mimi O'Donnell, appears in the film as one of the reporters who first interviews Joel Wachs.

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Although both Alana Haim and Cooper Hoffman make their feature film debuts in this film, they had met years earlier: Alana and her sisters did a kind of babysitting for Cooper when he was thirteen, having stopped by director Paul Thomas Anderson's house while he was with Cooper's father, Philip Seymour Hoffman. Even at that age, Alana found Cooper particularly intriguing, just as her character does his in this film.

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When Jon Peters arrives at the gas station, "Indian Reservation" is playing on the radio and Peters says they are in "Chumash territory." The Chumash are a Native American tribe whose origins extend to the San Fernando Valley.

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Tim Conway Jr. appears as the director of Gary's commercial auditions. Conway is the son of the famous television comedian Tim Conway, a friend of Paul Thomas Anderson's father dating back to the 1960s, when both were television personalities at WJW in Cleveland, Ohio. As a young man growing up in the San Fernando Valley in the 1970s, Anderson appeared many times on Tim Conway Jr.'s radio program to reminisce about the time they spent together.

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Cooper Hoffman's sisters are among the cast of the performance on the Jerry Best Show in New York City in the film.

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Paul Thomas Anderson, who was struggling to find a lead actor, solidified the idea of potentially casting Cooper Hoffman in his mind when he mentioned it casually to the Haim sisters, and they all immediately approved.

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According to assistant cinematographer Michael Bauman, Paul Thomas Anderson did the color timing for this film himself.

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