A couple years ago, as she was leaving the Coachella music festival, Teyana Taylor was stuck in traffic when her phone rang. She didn’t recognize the number and thought it might be a scammer, but, surprising herself, she picked up anyway. “I was like, ‘Who the hell is this?’ ” she recalled saying. “It was Paul Thomas Anderson! I didn’t know him personally, wasn’t expecting his call, had no idea why he was calling.” Anderson told Taylor about One Battle After Another, a script he had been writing, on and off, for 20 years. Taylor was asked to play Perfidia Beverly Hills, the propulsive, charismatic leader of a political revolutionary group called the French 75. “It would still have been a yes even if Paul had offered me the part of a background person,” Taylor told me. “I hadn’t read the script, but Paul kept saying, ‘Perfidia is you.’ ”
Anderson, who is nominated for three Academy Awards for One Battle—best director, best adapted screenplay, and best picture, in addition to the other 10 nominations the film garnered—has always had a genius for casting. In his first film, Hard Eight, a then unknown Philip Seymour Hoffman had a small but memorable part as a gambler. Julianne Moore wasn’t a household name when she played Amber Waves in Boogie Nights, and the lead of that film, Mark Wahlberg, was known mostly for his Calvin Klein underwear ads. Anderson reinvented Tom Cruise as an emotionally broken sex guru in Magnolia; Alana Haim went from pop star to leading lady in Licorice Pizza—and so on, throughout his career. Anderson had seen Taylor in the 2023 film A Thousand and One, in which she played a fierce mother who springs her child from foster care. It’s a raw performance, especially since Taylor is often seen as glamorous in real life. “Teyana is so electric and alive on-screen,” Anderson told me. “I guess it’s what we call ‘screen presence.’ That performance in A Thousand and One made me want to meet her. Teyana’s physicality is very precise and fun to watch—also, fun to be around. Perfidia is a ‘runner,’ someone who’s restless if she’s stuck in one place for too long. Teyana is also very restless—always searching for new information, new challenges. And she’s the best dancer!”
Teyana Taylor wears an Hermès jacket and scarf.
A few days after their initial conversation, Taylor and Anderson spoke again. Anderson had her read some scenes with Leonardo DiCaprio, who had already been cast as Bob Ferguson, Perfidia’s lover and ardent follower. “Teyana took charge of the part,” Anderson said. “Or, maybe, she stole the part from me: She fleshed it out and took command in ways that made me very proud.”
All of Anderson’s films center on the nature of family—either biological or chosen, and sometimes both. He is fascinated by the ties that connect people. In Boogie Nights, Burt Reynolds is a porn director, and his cast and crew all seem to live in his house; in Phantom Thread, Daniel Day-Lewis runs a fashion atelier with his sister; in Magnolia, all the characters are united in song as a plague of frogs rains down on the city. Family is also the engine of One Battle. Bob Ferguson is raising Willa, the daughter of Perfidia, who has disappeared. When Willa, played by Chase Infiniti, is kidnapped, Ferguson has to emerge from his stoned stupor to rescue her. It’s an action film, but there are many kinds of love in One Battle: unrequited love, love for a child, and love for a cause.
Anderson also clearly has love for his cast—that is why the director agreed to photograph Taylor on a Saturday morning in Los Angeles. He asked that she come to his house in the Valley, where he lives with his partner, the comedian and actor Maya Rudolph, and their four children. Their oldest daughter, Pearl, is a student in the acting department at NYU and has a small part as a nun in One Battle. All of his children appeared in Licorice Pizza. “I am happiest,” said Anderson, “if I have a camera and my kids in the same room.”
Taylor arrived at the house in a white Hermès outfit with colorful scarf-like embellishments and her hair styled in braids. “Paul knows I’m a tomboy,” Taylor said. “He knows that I like pixie tails. When he opened the door, he said, ‘You look so cute!’ ”
Hermès jacket.
At the shoot, Taylor’s intention was to merge her identity with Perfidia’s. Anderson, on the other hand, wanted to focus on the real Teyana. He photographed her with her glasses on and little makeup. “Teyana was certainly wearing something fashionable—but then again, everything she wears becomes fashionable,” Anderson said. “I suppose the only idea we had was to be simple. We wanted to spend a quiet morning catching up and then take some natural shots, free of people and makeup.”
Hermès jacket, pants, harness, scarf, and belt.
During their second hour together, Anderson imagined Taylor getting ready to head off to an event. Her life, since the release of the film last September, has been a whirlwind: Taylor has been nominated for every possible award in the category of best supporting actress, and she won the Golden Globe. She hosted Saturday Night Live and the CFDA Awards, attended the Schiaparelli couture show in Paris in January, and was nominated for a Grammy for best R&B album in February. (In addition to acting, Taylor, who was born in New York, has been a singer and songwriter for more than 20 years.) She is also the mother of two young girls, 10-year-old Junie and 5-year-old Rue—her ex-husband is the basketball player Iman Shumpert—and her mother, Nikki Taylor, is her manager. “I am bringing my mom to the Oscars,” Taylor said. “I am very, very shy by nature, and it’s nice to have family with me. On the red carpet, I’m always thinking, Don’t fall, don’t fall. If I’m wearing a really good dress, I can exude the necessary confidence. But inside, I’m always nervous.”
Hermès jacket and skirt; Tom Ford shoes.
To ground herself, Taylor books rooms in a hotel near the awards venue. “I always have my family in the suite with my babies, and they have a watch party. After I won the Golden Globe, I ran over to my babies. Win or lose, I’ll be loved on.”
At the W photo shoot, Taylor changed into a tight black leather Hermès skirt and matching zippered jacket with motocross detailing. Anderson took her into his office, where she posed in front of his floor-to-ceiling bookcases. She looked fierce, more like Perfidia than herself. “Perfidia is one of those people who are so fun and exciting—they are thrilling to be around—but exhausting,” Anderson said. “They never know how to turn it off. Perfidia’s flaw is that she starts believing her own hype. She starts off with all the right intentions, but gets lost in the wild, reckless energy of it all and misses the mark of the message she began with. This is a common story.”
Hermès jacket, pants, harness, and scarf.
That may be an all-too-familiar failing of human nature, but Perfidia is a unique character. Her complicated maternal instincts, combined with her zeal for political upheaval, are part of the reason One Battle is so resonant. “She’s leading a revolution,” Taylor said. “And that melts into this moment.”
For another shot, Anderson posed Taylor in front of a pile of film canisters. She had changed out of the Hermès leather ensemble and into an outfit similar to one that Anderson often wears himself: dark cotton pants and a chore coat. Her feet were bare, and she had put her glasses back on. Sitting in front of neatly stacked reels, Taylor became her own director. Anderson seemed amused, but also recognized that Taylor was portraying a different character in that pose. “With Paul, I become a warrior. And when you’re a warrior, you want the leader to be in the field with you. Paul always has my undivided attention.”
Hermès jacket, pants, harness, and scarf.
Taylor transforming into Anderson seemed like a perfect ending to the shoot, but Taylor, who somehow finds the time to be in culinary school and is studying to be a chef, had one final thought before she left his house. “Because I had to go get dressed for an event and a Q&A and needed to see my kids, I said, ‘Goodbye, Chef.’ I’ve had to learn about leadership in culinary school, and Paul is the chef. If Paul is cooking, the world is a much better place.”
Hair by Nikki Nelms using Cécred for the Only Agency; makeup by Mayerling Cintron.
