Quentin Tarantino names the
Quentin Tarantino called Paul Dano the worst actor ever, and that’s the polite version.
The “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” writer-director skewered Dano, a Golden Globe and two-time Emmy nominee, with the kind of criticism you might mutter to your friends at a bar. But on Bret Easton Ellis’ recent podcast, it came off unnecessarily harsh.
Insults flew with Tarantino’s ranking of Paul Thomas Anderson’s “There Will Be Blood,” a 2007 oil drama starring Daniel Day-Lewis and Dano, at No. 5 on his list of best films of the 21st century. The “Pulp Fiction” author noted (according to Deadline), however, that it could have been the first or the second “if it didn’t have one big, giant flaw…and the flaw is Paul Dano.”
“[Dano] It’s a weak sauce, man. He is the weak sister. [Daniel Day-Lewis] is eating it [alive]. Austin Butler would have been wonderful in that role. [Dano’s] “Such a weak, weak, uninteresting guy,” Tarantino said, according to Variety. “Daniel Day-Lewis shows that he doesn’t need strong contrast. The movie needs it. He doesn’t need anything. It’s supposed to be a two-handed game and it’s not! … you put him with the weakest fucking actor in SAG? The flaccidest penis in the world?
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Ellis defended Dano’s performance as twins in the film, according to Variety. Tarantino went deeper. “I’m not saying he’s giving a terrible performance, I’m saying he’s giving a mediocre performance… I don’t care,” he said.
The film earned Day-Lewis a Best Actor Oscar and seemingly lifelong disdain for Tarantino’s Dano.
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Dano, whose biggest films include “The Batman” (2022), “The Fabelmans (2022) and “Love & Mercy” (2014), deserves a chance to respond, which is why News is reaching out.
By the way, Tarantino called director Ridley Scott’s war film “Black Hawk Down” (2001) his best film of the century so far.
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