Paul Grimstad appeared in the new Paul Thomas Anderson film “One Battle After Another,” which was released in theaters on Sept. 26.
Angel Hu & Beatrice Barilla
3:21 am, Oct 28, 2025
Staff Reporter & Contributing Reporter
Courtesy of Humanities Department
Paul Grimstad, a lecturer and the director of undergraduate studies in the humanities program, recently appeared in Paul Thomas Anderson’s thriller film “One Battle After Another,” which stars Leonardo DiCaprio and was released in theaters on Sept. 26.
Based on Thomas Pynchon’s 1990 novel “Vineland,” the movie is set amid the rise of an American surveillance state and follows an ex-revolutionary who must leave his off-the-grid lifestyle to find his missing daughter while evading government capture.
Grimstad plays Howard “Billy Goat” Sommerville, a character Grimstad described as the “tech whiz of the group” with a “sort of a propensity to theorize and explain things.”
“I was beyond thrilled to get to work and collaborate with one of my favorite living artists Paul Thomas Anderson,” Grimstad wrote in an email to the News. “I have been a fan of his work for almost 30 years and it was just an absolute no-brainer that I’d say yes to this.”
It was not Grimstad’s first time acting in a film: he played a supporting role in Ronald Bronstein’s independent film “Frownland” in 2007 and will have a feature in Josh Safdie’s forthcoming sports drama “Marty Supreme.”
And yet, Grimstad said he “had no ambitions to act,” nor had he “sought out acting gigs.” Instead, he recalled that “Paul Thomas Anderson had sent me the script after we had talked on the phone some about the Pynchon novel ‘Vineland.’”
“We also wanted to get this sort of grubby, scrappy look right, and that was enormous fun to collaborate, not only with Paul, but with costumes and hair and makeup to sort of get this guy right,” Grimstad wrote about his time on set.
Apart from acting and teaching, Grimstad is also a musician. Grimstad composed the original score for “Frownland,” and his song “Evening Mirror” is featured in Sean Price William’s 2023 satire film “The Sweet East.”
His musical pursuits extend to an original avant-pop album titled “SONGS” and a compilation of his film scores titled “Music for Film,” both released on Sept. 30.
“He’s one of the most radically original minds I’ve ever encountered. Each of his ideas detonate as singular events, unmarked by convention, trend, or utility,” Bronstein wrote about Grimstad in an email to the News. “And his way with language is just as arresting — freakishly precise, super colorful but never ornamental.”
For Grimstad, much of the creative process takes place in the “Notes” app on his phone, where he “has about 75 separate notes up and running at all times,” he wrote. Throughout the day, Grimstad will “write songs, articles, lectures, journal entries” in these notes.
Drawing upon his enthusiasm for “intellectual and creative work,” Grimstad wrote that he attempts to “convey that sense of aesthetic excellence” in the classroom.
Grimstad said he embraces this interdisciplinary approach within the classroom to provide a “multifaceted” learning experience.
“I find that all these different things overlap and inform each other, so I don’t really see the different activities as separate or in competition,” Grimstad wrote.
Carter Flemming ’28, who was in Grimstad’s Directed Studies philosophy class, described how he “infuses everything with passion and love for the world and love for the things that he gets to do, and it’s almost like that never runs out.”
“I think that’s what made his class so informative for me as a Yale student,” Flemming said.
Elspeth Yeh ’28, another former student of Grimstad’s and a staff writer for the News, also commented on his enthusiastic teaching style.
“I think that he has this infectious energy when he teaches where you can tell that he is just absolutely fascinated by the things that he’s talking about,” Yeh said. “I came away from every class last year feeling like my whole world had been revolutionized.”
Yeh describes her memories of Grimstad’s class with appreciation for his “genuine interest and investment” in students’ contributions and for an approach to teaching that fostered meaningful discussions.
“All of the things that make up the humanities are also things that I think make up Paul Grimstad,” Yeh said.
Grimstad has also taught at Columbia University and New York University.
ANGEL HU
Angel Hu covers film and literature events. She is a sophomore in Pauli Murray College majoring in English.
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