Director Quentin Tarantino just finished his countdown for his favorite films of the 21 Century, and during it he took a shot at Paul Dano.
Quentin Tarantino just finished his Top 20 films of the 21st century, which were:
- Ridley Scott’s Black Hawk Down
- Lee Unkrich’s Toy Story 3
- Sofia Coppola’s Lost In Translation
- Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk
- Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood
- David Fincher’s Zodiac
- Tony Scott’s Unstoppable
- George Miller’s Mad Max Fury Road
- Edgar Wright’s Shaun of the Dead
- Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris
- Kinji Fukasaku’s Battle Royale
- Aharon Keshales & Navot Papushado’s Big Bad Wolves
- Jeff Tremaine’s Jackass: The Movie
- Richard Linklater’s School of Rock
- Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ
- Rob Zombie’s The Devil’s Rejects
- Prachya Pinkaew’s Chocolate
- Bennett Miller’s Moneyball
- Eli Roth’s Cabin Fever
- Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story
He added that There Will Be Blood had a chance to be his greatest film of the 21st century if it weren’t for a ‘big, giant flaw’… Paul Dano. Here’s the full quote, which he said in the The Bret Ellis Podcast and was transcribed by our friends at No Film School. Deadline also transcribed it.
“Daniel Day-Lewis. The old-style craftsmanship quality to the film. It had an old Hollywood craftsmanship without trying to be like that. It was the only film he’s ever done, and I brought it up to him, that doesn’t have a set piece. The fire is the closest to a set piece. This was about dealing with the narrative, dealing with the story, and he did it fcking amazingly. ‘There Will Be Blood’ would stand a good chance at being #1 or #2 if it didn’t have a big, giant flaw in it … and the flaw is Paul Dano. Obviously, it’s supposed to be a two-hander, but it’s also drastically obvious that it’s not a two-hander. [Dano] is weak sauce, man. He is the weak sister. Austin Butler would have been wonderful in that role. He’s just such a weak, weak, uninteresting guy. The weakest fucking actor in SAG [laughs].”
It’s worth noting Austin Butler would’ve been ~15 years old when the film released and would’ve been far too young for the role. Paul Dano was in his early 20s during filming. This isn’t the first time Quentin Tarantino has commented on Paul Dano’s performance, although his recent comments are far harsher. Here’s another quote from years back:
“…not that the performance is bad, there’s nothing bad about it, it just does seem a compromise. He’s just not in the level and the caliber of Daniel Day-Lewis and if the two characters are meant to be combats throughout the film, then Daniel Day-Lewis is Muhammed Ali and Paul Dano is Jerry Quarry. It is what it is.”
Tarantino also said he ‘didn’t care for’ Matthew Lillard and Owen Wilson’s acting in the same rant. Lillard has since responded:
Daniel Day-Lewis previously praised Paul Dano, who stepped in for another actor for the role weeks after filming started. At the time calling him one of the promising young actors in the business.
“Originally we cast somebody else in the part of Eli and we shot for three or four weeks with a different actor. But it didn’t work out for a number of reasons. It’s the only occasion in my life that, during the course of a piece of work, we had to re-cast and re-shoot stuff which I wouldn’t wish on anybody.
Paul was already contracted to play the part of Paul, and we’d all considered him for Eli already, so it seemed like an obvious choice. He flew out to what he thought would be one of his scenes as Paul and we asked him what he thought about also playing Eli and he never went home again. He had two days to prepare for the part. He came out on a Friday evening and we were shooting scenes on Monday with him. And I swear to God on set that day he was a recognizable, fully formed character. I dare say he was slightly unsettled in himself, but you wouldn’t have guessed it. He was just right there.”
Quentin Tarantino has been on the press cycle lately as his new Fortnite short The Lost Chapter: Yuki’s Revenge was released. We were in attendance where he talked about the process of creating it, along with other spinoff ideas he has for his past films, including a Kill Bill prequel. Check it out here.
For more news, check out our film section on the site.
KILL YOURSELF
In the QT quote comparing the acting to Ali, it’s Jerry Quarry, not “Jerry Corey”