“It makes me emotional—how rich my life is with such amazing people. I’m so grateful to have met Paul and Cooper. Like, look at this thing we made that we’re so proud of. It’s all because of these weird cosmic instances that brought us together. The way that we met feels like a movie in itself.”
–Alana Haim, episode 256 of Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso
Today, we return to our conversation with musician and actor Alana Haim!
We first sat with Alana around her on-screen debut in the film Licorice Pizza, directed by Paul Thomas Anderson. Making her acting debut, Alana shares the serendipitous backstory that led to the project (6:00), the “7th grade forever theory” that helped her get inside the character of Alana Kane (13:17), a high school house party where she baked cake and fell in love (17:30), and the fortuitous afternoon she met future co-star Cooper Hoffman (23:23).
In the back half, we talk about the early days of HAIM (30:33) and how art helps transcend our own limitations (36:50), culminating in the night Alana drove a six-wheeler truck up (and down) the pitch black hills of the San Fernando Valley (35:55), as co-star Bradley Cooper rode shotgun. We also discuss the One More HAIM tour (39:08), the song she was most excited to perform from Women in Music Pt. III, and what she hopes for in the decade to come (41:30).
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Show-notes:
- Listen to HAIM: Women in Music Pt. III, Something to Tell You, and Days Are Gone.
- Pre-order the 10th anniversary reissue of Days Are Gone.
- Find more info about their music and live shows on their website.
- See Alana in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Licorice Pizza.
- Follow her on Instagram.
- Learn about A24’s upcoming re-release of Talking Heads’ Stop Making Sense.
- For more talks, hear our conversations with Este Haim, Ludwig Göransson, David Byrne, Lorde, Questlove, and Abbi Jacobson.
- Order your Talk Easy mug in cream and navy or our vinyl record with Fran Lebowitz.
Illustrations by Krishna Shenoi.
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