Alana Haim in “Licorice Pizza”, her amazing debut in the film

Anderson said he knew Heim would be good, but “I did not know she would be that Good. I’ve been working with the same kids for about 20 years, and I just kept looking at them for verification. Like, you have to tap me on the shoulder to make sure I see what I see. Do not let me have illusions. “And everyone on set saw what I saw – her abilities and the way you can photograph her.”

It helped that her co-star, the effortlessly charismatic Cooper Hoffman (son of Philip Seymour Hoffman, who was a frequent collaborator with Anderson), had also never acted in a film before. Anderson was late in the process, auditioning several young actors who felt too lenient and formally trained to match Heim’s naturalistic style. Hoffman and Heim had met for a while through Anderson five years ago, not believing that their paths would meet again, but as soon as they read together, Heim recalled: “It was like, oh, we’re a team. “We can deal with the world together.”

Despite the relatively pure relationship of the characters, the age difference between them has caused some controversy. In real life, Heim, who turns 30 this month, is 12 years older than Hoffman (they bonded so much during filming that he still calls him “one of my best friends”). her age is a bit ambiguous. . At one point the character says he is 25 years old, but there is a pause between the two numbers that suggests he may be rounding up. “There was never really a discussion between me and Paul about how old Alana was,” he said. “In her 20s. I say some ages in the movie, but you don’t really believe Alana. Does not even know how old he really is? He is very secretive. “But in fact, it’s more about her friendship with Gary than anything else.”

When we spoke late November afternoon, Haim was battling a bay infection that blamed Santa Ana winds. As a Southern California breeze tickled the curtains of her open living room window, she occasionally interrupted our conversation to blow her nose with humorous theatricality. (“Oh, that was one lot!She was wearing a white T-shirt, jeans and, around her neck, her most valuable thing, a “Sisters of the Moon” pendant given to her by one of her idols, Stevie Knicks. In the conversation, Heim is rude and dazzling, occasionally cutting the edges of her sentences in an excited rush to get to the next thought.

As they turned, Anderson found that the actor most reminiscent of Heim was Joaquin Phoenix, who directed Anderson in “The Master” (2012) and “Inherent Vice” (2014).

“She can throw herself into something like Joaquin,” Anderson said. “You can not tell if it is completely out of control or if it is so inside their body that they are able to make it look out of control. They look a lot alike. It is strange. They are both wild, you know? “You’re not really sure what’s going on.”