Trivia for
There Will Be Blood (2007) More at IMDbPro »

• Paul Thomas Anderson stated that he watched The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) every night before filming this movie.
  
  
• In an interview on the National Public Radio program "Fresh Air with Terry Gross," Paul Dano told Gross that he had originally been cast in the much smaller role of Paul Sunday, Eli's brother, and another actor had been cast as Eli. However, after Dano had already started filming his one scene as Paul Sunday, Paul Thomas Anderson decided to replace the actor playing Eli. Anderson then asked Dano to play Eli Sunday (a much bigger role) as well as Paul Sunday, and they decided to change the film to make the brothers identical twins. Anderson asked Dano to play Eli on a Thursday, and filming for the role began four days later, on the next Monday. Daniel Day-Lewis, by contrast, had a whole year to prepare to play Daniel Plainview.
  
  
• According to a 2007 interview with Paul Dano on the NPR radio show “Fresh Air with Terry Gross”, the scene where Plainview is baptized by Eli (where Eli slaps him several times) was shot the day after the scene in which Plainview threatens to bury Eli (and slaps him around).
  
  
• Daniel Day-Lewis based his voice for and characterization of Daniel Plainview in part on old recordings of the director, writer, and actor John Huston. An article by Christopher Goodwin in the Sunday Times (of London) revealed Paul Thomas Anderson sent Day-Lewis documentaries about Huston while Day-Lewis was preparing to play the role.
  
  
• While on location in Marfa, Texas, No Country for Old Men (2007) was the neighboring film production. One day, director Paul Thomas Anderson and his crew tested the pyrotechnical effects of the oil derrick fire, causing an enormous billowing of smoke, intruding the shot that Joel Coen and Ethan Coen were shooting. This caused them to put off filming until the next day when the smoke dissipated from view. Both this film and No Country for Old Men (2007) would eventually become the leading contenders at the Academy Awards a year and a half later.
  
  
• Dillon Freasier (who plays H.W. Plainview, the son of the character played by Daniel Day-Lewis) was not an actor; he was an elementary student near the film's West Texas shooting location. On the radio program "Fresh Air with Terry Gross," Paul Thomas Anderson told Gross that when the production was trying to convince Dillon's mother to allow Dillon to be in the movie, his mother wanted to figure out who Day-Lewis was, so she rented a copy of Gangs of New York (2002) (in which Day-Lewis plays a murderous gang leader nicknamed "The Butcher"). She panicked at the idea of her son spending time with the man she saw in that movie, so the ‘There Will Be Blood’ casting department rushed to her a copy of The Age of Innocence (1993), in which Day-Lewis plays a civilized and gentle man.
  
  
• The film was originally given a 12A rating in the UK for cinema exhibition, meaning that children of any age could see it, with adult supervision if they were younger than 12. In a curious move, the distributors subsequently appealed to the British Board of Film Classification to consider raising the certificate. The BBFC agreed, and the film was subsequently uprated to a more restrictive 15, preventing anyone under that age from being admitted to screenings regardless of parental supervision.
  
  
• Daniel Day-Lewis accepted the role of Daniel Plainview as he had been a fan of Paul Thomas Anderson's previous film, Punch-Drunk Love (2002). According to Producer JoAnne Sellar, the film might not even have been made at all if Day-Lewis declined the role.
  
  
• Director Paul Thomas Anderson owns a vintage 1910 Pathe camera which contains a special 43mm lens. The lens was specially modified to be used in the film as it has very low resolution and can shift colors at corners. Only certain shots of the film used this lens; for example a shot of Plainview sleeping in the train with an infant H.W.
  
  
• The main character Daniel Plainview was modeled loosely after famous oil man Edward Doheny and his characteristics were based on Count Dracula. Greystone Mansion in Beverly Hills was used at the end of the film; this house was built by Doheny for his son, Edward L. Doheny, Jr. (Ned).
  
  
• The fictional character of Daniel Plainview bears some resemblance to a real, early 20th-century California oil tycoon named Edward L. Doheny. Both were from Fond du Lac, Wisconsin; both were employed by Geological Survey and worked in Kansas; both tried a hand at mining before going into the oil business; and both worked with a fellow prospector named "H. B. Ailman." As for other Plainview-Doheny connections, the bowling alley scene in ‘There Will Be Blood’ was filmed at Greystone Manor, a California estate Doheny built as a present for his only son. Also interestingly, the infamous "milkshake speech" Plainview gives is based upon transcripts of congressional hearings concerning the Teapot Dome Scandal, in which the very same Edward L. Doheny had been accused of bribing a political official.
  
  
• In the novel Oil, the characters Daniel and H.W. Plainview are based on are named J. Arnold Ross and J. "Bunny" Arnold Ross junior, respectively.
  
  
• Several characters seen or mentioned in ‘There Will Be Blood’ seem to have been based on real life historical figures. Though his name is never spoken during the film, Plainview's business partner and H. W.'s biological father, H. B. Ailman, shares the name of a real life prospector and oilman who was active during the turn of the century and associates with oil tycoon Edward L. Doheny, of whom Daniel Plainview seems to have been partly based. The two Standard Oil representatives "H. M. Tilford" and "J. J. Carter" who meet with Plainview are based on real-life oilmen: Henry Morgan Tilford was once vice-president of the Standard Oil Company during the turn of the century, while John Joyce Carter's Carter Oil Company was incorporated and subsidized by Standard Oil (New Jersey) in the 1890s. At one point in the film, the name "A. C. Maude" is stated as a property holder in Little Boston; the real life A. C. Maude was a prominent community member of Bakersfield, California during the late 1800s; Bakersfield is located in Kern County, where over 80% of California's oil wells are found. The name "Redlick" is also stated as a nearby Little Boston property holder; Joseph Redlick was also a prominent community member of Bakersfield during the early 1900s.
  
  
• The town of Marfa near the Texas-Mexico border was used to simulate Bakersfield, California. A reason to support the use of the town is that there are many abandoned shafts dug out at the early 20-century. One of the shafts used in the film is a deep shaft, 60-70 feet that connects to a mechanically-dug perpendicular tunnel at the bottom. Other sets like the church where built from there.
  
  
• Paul Thomas Anderson planned to have the restored bowling alley (used at the climax) located at the Greystone Mansion to be entirely painted in white to give some Kubrick symmetry and menacing quality (also a nod to A Clockwork Orange (1971)). However, he changed it to its original state when it was later decided that the bowling alley was to be given away for ownership after filming.
  
  
• Daniel Day-Lewis improvised the speech he gives to the citizens of Little Boston, about building schools, bringing bread to the town, etc. Paul Thomas Anderson says of this, "It was delicious. It was Plainview on a platter."
  
  
• Daniel Day-Lewis used oral histories from the time period to create Plainview's distinctive voice.
  
  
• In the summer of '06, during filming, a photographer snapped an onset photo of a person they believed to be Daniel Day-Lewis, albeit with a great deal of physical alterations. The photo appeared used on various film websites and in magazines as an example of how drastically Day-Lewis had changed himself for the role. Upon viewing the film and applying common sense, it turns out, this person was NOT, in fact, Daniel Day-Lewis; it was instead actor Vince Froio, who portrayed Plainview's "closest associate" at the end of the film.
  
  
• According to Paul Thomas Anderson, the director and crew were "pretty loose about where scenes would take place." This sometimes meant filming scenes three or four different times in different locations, and evaluating the result each time.
  
  
• The infamous "I drink your milkshake!" is, in part, a real quote. Paul Thomas Anderson found the metaphor in congressional transcripts from the 1920's Teapot Dome scandal, in which New Mexico Republican Senator Albert Fall was convicted of accepting bribes for oil drilling rights to various lands. According to Anderson, "I think it was Albert Fall, who was asked to describe drainage before Congress. And his way of describing it was, 'If you have a milkshake and I have a milkshake, and my straw reaches across the room ...' I'm sure I embellished it and changed it around and made it more Plainview. But Fall used the word milkshake, and I thought it was so great. It was mad to see that word among all this official testimony and terminology - a fucking milkshake. I get so happy every time I hear that word."
  
  
• Dedicated to Robert Altman.
  
  
• Two traditional Christian hymns are heard during the film, both sung by Eli Sunday's Little Boston congregation. The first is "What a Friend We Have in Jesus," which is heard preceding the scene in which Eli tells Plainview he will bless the oil well. The second is "There is Power in the Blood" which is sung immediately after Plainview's baptism.
  
  
• The piece "Convergence" during the oil derrick fire was originally composed by Johnny Greenwood for the film Bodysong (2003), and is available on the soundtrack for that film, but not 'There Will Be Blood'.
  
  
• Anderson told Entertainment Weekly magazine that the fake oil used throughout the movie included "the stuff they put in chocolate milkshakes at McDonald's."
  
  
• Ranked #51 on Entertainment Weekly's "100 New Movie Classics" list in 2008.
  
  
• Kel O'Neill was originally cast in the role of Eli Sunday but was replaced by Paul Dano after shooting had begun.
  
  
• The instantly famous milkshake monologue Daniel has at the end of the movie comes straight from the congressional transcripts of the 1920s "Teapot Dome" scandal, in which New Mexico Republican Senator Albert Fall was convicted of accepting bribes for the oil-drilling rights to public lands in California and Wyoming from several oil-industry fat cats (including Edward Doheny). The scandal was Sinclair's inspiration for the novel, and Edward Doheny was Anderson's inspiration for Daniel Plainview.
  
  
• Although the screenplay is based on the Upton Sinclair novel 'Oil!', Paul Thomas Anderson used only the first 150 pages for a big portion of the material. The rest was made up. The novel's setting was in 1920s but it was moved to the beginning of the oil boom in California.
  
  
• A little-known band in Manchester, UK have adopted the name of Eli and The Third Revelation in homage to the film.
  
  
• Along with his win in 1989, Daniel Day-Lewis became only the Eighth actor to win the Academy Award for Best Actor twice; the others are Fredric March (1932,1946), Jack Nicholson (1975,1997), Marlon Brando (1954,1972), Gary Cooper (1941,1952), Tom Hanks (1993,1994), Dustin Hoffman (1979,1988) and Spencer Tracy (1937,1938).
  
  

• SPOILER: The script originally ended with Plainview bludgeoning Eli to death with a tumbler, instead of a bowling pin, and then throwing his body through the bowling pins into the cellar beyond. Once on set, it was changed to the slightly less graphic version seen in the film.
  
  
• SPOILER: Body Count: 4
  
  
• SPOILER: During the 1927 wedding scene of H. W. Plainview and Mary Sunday, the Priest is heard reciting the Biblical story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well. His quotations are from the book of John, chapter 4, verses 14-15, "But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life. The woman saith unto him, 'Sir, give me this water, that I [shall] thirst not, neither come hither to draw.'"
  
  

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