As Joanna Newsom charmingly explains in today’s confession, Paul Thomas Anderson—the venerable director of Boogie Nights, There Will Be Blood and The Master—had some solemn words of advice for the eccentric Californian harpist, vocalist and object of many an indie fan-boy dream crush regarding her first scene in his new movie, Inherent Vice:

1. Throw harder punches at your co-star Joaquin Phoenix.
2. Flood the sorrows of poor performance with whisky.
3. Wake up and do it all again. 

Despite cameos in Portlandia and MGMT music videos, Newsom, predominantly known for her troika of classic Drag City records, The Milk-Eyed Mender, Ys and Have One on Me, had never acted in a feature film until Thomas Anderson approached her to play narrator Sortilège in his surreal comic adaptation of Thomas Pynchon’s novel of the same name.

“My dad read us all The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe series, and my mom would read us all the books in The Little House on the Prairie series," Newsom says to filmmaking duo Yours Truly of the first-recollections she mined to help her approach the role. "My memories of those two series are melded into a super series of both plots intertwined completely, and it all became one incredible psychedelic story, which was a really great tale for a four-year-old."

Paul Thomas Anderson’s trippy 70s vision continues into the new year with an immersive exhibition inspired by Inherent Vice at Ace Hotels in Los Angeles, New York and London, which features Grateful Dead alumni The Joshua Light Show, Jonny Greenwood’s original film score, and artists including Lili Lakich, Steven Harrington and the Haas Brothers.

The Inherent Vice exhibition opens at Ace Hotel Downtown Los Angeles and New York on January 6 and London on January 19.