Philip Baker Hall met Paul Thomas Anderson while the director was just starting his career. “If Philip Baker Hall hadn’t entertained the whims of a dorky production assistant and agreed to star in his no-budge short film we wouldn’t have Paul Thomas Anderson,” a person tweeted after the actor’s death. The pair met on the set of a television movie that Hall was hired for and Anderson had volunteered on. After the pair met, the then-aspiring director asked Hall to read his script for a short film. “He really seemed like a kid. So I’m reading this script, and I truly had trouble believing that that kid wrote this script. I mean, it was just so brilliant,” Hall recalled to the AV Club in 2012.
The “Rush Hour” actor was so impressed that he agreed to star in Anderson’s short film “Cigarettes & Coffee” as weary gambler Sydney. Later, he reprised the role in the director’s first feature length movie, “Hard Eight,” per AV Club.
While collaborating with Anderson on future projects such as “Boogie Nights” and “Magnolia,” Hall formed a relationship with fellow actor Philip Seymour Hoffman who died in 2014. Shortly after Hoffman’s death, Hall was effusive when discussing the late star. “My regard for him both as an artist and a man couldn’t be higher,” Hall told Rolling Stone in 2014, referring to the fellow Anderson collaborator as “a genius.”
