10 Things You Didn't Know About Paul Thomas Anderson's Movies

10. Paul Thomas Anderson Met Philip Baker Hall On The Set Of 'Quiz Kid Challenge'.

Paul Thomas Anderson wasn't always a big time movie director - after performing poorly in high school he started his career in the entertainment business working on a variety of television shows as a production assistant. It was on the set of Quiz Kid Challenge where he met one of his regular acting collaborators, Philip Baker Hall. While this anecdote in and of itself might not sound like anything out of the ordinary, it took on a particular charm of its own when Paul Thomas Anderson cast Philip Baker Hall in his third feature film, Magnolia. After incorporating his own experiences working on Quiz Kid Challenge into the script, Anderson cast Hall as the host of the fictional TV series What Do Kids Know? It's a wonderful piece of "meta" casting that adds to the completeness of Anderson's filmography for those in the know.