Skyler Gisondo admits he lied to Paul Thomas Anderson to get a Licorice Pizza role
Skyler Gisondo admits he lied to Paul Thomas Anderson to snag his Licorice Pizza role—and he’s now sharing what, exactly, he said.
When Paul Thomas Anderson FaceTimed Skyler Gisondo to offer him a spot in Licorice Pizza, the director had one follow-up: could he play piano? On Josh Horowitz’s Happy Sad Confused podcast, Gisondo said he answered yes — even though he’d never touched the keys.
"It would have been a lie to be like, 'yeah, I play a little bit.' But I swung for the fences. Yeah, dude. I said, 'I've been playing my whole life,'" he said.
Crash-course piano
The bluff got real fast when Anderson told him the scene would require Scott Joplin’s The Entertainer. Gisondo had 10 weeks before filming, so he started from zero and built a routine to get there.
He said he practiced for hours every day, battling nerves the entire time.
"I played legitimately probably like 5 hours a day every day. The whole time thinking like waking up in cold sweats like I'm not. Today's the day I call him and come clean and like tell him I can't," he recalled.
According to Gisondo, the grind worked: he performed the piece for the scene. He also said he told Anderson’s wife about the original lie — and that she urged him to come clean — but he believes Anderson himself still might not know.
Then the edit
After all that, Gisondo said a later call from Anderson brought a twist: the piano bit didn’t make the final cut. The scene was dropped in editing, though Gisondo kept the role in the film.
Gisondo shared the whole story during his appearance on Horowitz’s Happy Sad Confused podcast.