Alana Haim on the “Epic Adventure” of “Licorice Pizza,” Now Oscar-Nominated

We all know Alana Haim can gentle up the stage as we have seen over the past decade because the youngest of the sister pop-rock trio, HAIM. However do you know she may additionally gentle up the display? Because the Valley proud chick band burst onto the music scene in 2013, they’ve impressed everybody from Dave Grohl to Stevie Nicks and turn into shut pals with Taylor Swift. It was solely a matter of time earlier than fellow Valley child and eight-time Oscar-nominated director Paul Thomas Anderson additionally took discover and, out of pure fandom, directed a number of of HAIM’s music movies, together with “Night time So Lengthy” and “Proper Now.”

So maybe it ought to come as no shock that somebody as proficient as Anderson would see one thing in Haim that she did not see in herself and write a complete film about her. This was information to Alana Haim — and so started the wild trip she’s been on since “Licorice Pizza” hit theaters in November. So, how does it really feel for a neighborhood Valley woman musician turned actress?

“A bit bit like I am within the twilight zone,” Haim tells POPSUGAR. However what introduced her again all the way down to Earth is the truth that the movie was actually filmed within the San Fernando Valley, aka her childhood neighborhood. “I’ve all the time beloved the valley, although everybody thought that the valley was uncool. I all the time thought the valley was cool,” she explains.

The Valley is a bit of Los Angeles that’s accessed by driving by means of a few canyons for a number of miles. However in the event you stay in LA and cope with visitors, it may be a trouble. And within the Seventies, it was thought of an “undesirable space” to reside in regardless of its nice financial worth, above-average public colleges, and the enduring Ventura Boulevard. So, for many who grew up within the Valley, it is a sacred place. These few knew it was cool when it was uncool to suppose so, however the connection goes deeper than LA geography. It goes again to grade college for PTA as Mama Haim, previously often called “Miss Rose,” was Anderson’s artwork instructor.

Haim explains, “My mother was Paul’s instructor earlier than she had met my dad, so she was not Mrs. Haim, she was Miss Rose — my mother’s maiden title is Rose, which can be so excellent for an artwork instructor title. So rising up, my mother would all the time speak about how one in all her favourite college students was Paul Thomas Anderson . . . She would all the time say, ‘I used to show Paul’ And we’d all the time be like, ‘OK, certain mother.'”

Haim continues, “Then, years later, our good friend, who’s on this band known as Electrical Gasoline, known as us and was like, ‘Hey Paul Thomas Anderson is attempting to come up with you’ . . . And we wrote him an e-mail saying, ‘Oh my gosh we’re such massive followers,’ not mentioning my mother.”

Later, when first assembly Anderson, the Haim sisters arrived at Anderson’s home with the plan to not even point out their mom’s connection. However eldest Haim sister, Este, blurted it out and Paul’s response is what Alana had feared for years. He replied, “Who’s your mother?” And after they responded, “Miss Rose,” Haim says “his eyes lit up . . . he went up into his son’s room and he had this canvas, he has this portray that he had painted with my mother of this mountain in his son’s room . . . And he was like, ‘I beloved your mother, your mother was one in all my favourite lecturers.’ Then that began our friendship. He beloved my mother, he beloved us, he beloved that we had been Valley women and that we beloved the Valley as a lot as he did and now years later, I am in a film of his.”

Alana was not ready for what he would ask of her subsequent: starring in his subsequent characteristic movie, “Licorice Pizza.” “I imply I used to be nervous each single day, I had butterflies each single day on set,” Haim says. “I used to be simply so shocked that I used to be even on this film and I beloved being part of it, so I had butterflies day-after-day as a result of I simply needed to do a superb job. That was actually it. I simply thought I need to soak this expertise up and simply do a superb job.”

Oscar-nominated movie operates like a time capsule of Seventies Los Angeles and what it was wish to be a younger child figuring it out, no matter which may be. To name this movie a coming-of-age story is a bit too simple. It is greater than that. It is a love letter to an period, a spot, a household, and determining who you’re irrespective of how a lot you attempt to keep away from it. For Alana, that was maybe the very best half. In some ways, she received to return in time to her childhood within the Valley.

Haim recollects, “On Balboa Boulevard, there is a fuel station, and I’d go to that fuel station. Rising up, my greatest good friend lived principally at that exit on the 101, so I might go to that fuel station each different day to get fuel, and [Paul] shut it down and I keep in mind exhibiting up and there was all these ’70s vehicles they usually switched the billboard to be a Caymet billboard, and everybody was in ’70s clothes and there have been so many individuals.” She continued, “I feel we had been all stoked to be in 1973 for the entire summer time. It was wild. And I imply I have been dressing in ’70s clothes since principally beginning, it is my period.”

When you’re a fan of Alana’s band, you already know the ’70s actually is their period. HAIM’s fashion usually incorporates the easy stylish of the ’70s: lengthy pure hair and high-waisted pants. So you’ll assume she would snag a wardrobe merchandise or two from the set, proper? However Alana, admittedly so nervous to be on her first movie set, resisted. “I did not get to take something, which is so unhappy as a result of I beloved a lot of my wardrobe throughout this film,” Haim says. “I hoped that perhaps by the top of it they’d be like, ‘Decide not less than one merchandise,’ and I did not get to do it. However I imply it was principally like every little thing I wore in highschool.”

Transporting again from ’70s LA to modern-day, Alana is now a bonafide multi-hyphenate, although the phrase makes her cringe. With a number of Grammy nominations, she’s definitely earned the suitable to be known as as a lot. However she’ll be the final one to say so. “Oh no, I do not suppose I’ve earned the suitable to be a hyphenate. I nonetheless contemplate myself very a lot a musician, however I beloved the expertise and I beloved appearing and the truth that I’ve this; I imply I’ve somewhat little bit of ‘the bug,'” she says. “I am excited to go on tour as a result of after this, we begin the “One Extra HAIM” tour . . . after which who is aware of what the longer term holds. However I actually do suppose that Paul noticed one thing in me and I am so glad that he did as a result of, I am a Sagittarius, so I like taking up new adventures, and that is probably the most epic journey I’ve ever been part of.”