Quentin Tarantino has trashed one Hollywood actor as "the weakest male actor in SAG [the Screen Actors Guild]". Photo / Kevin Winter, Getty Images
Quentin Tarantino has trashed one Hollywood actor as "the weakest male actor in SAG [the Screen Actors Guild]". Photo / Kevin Winter, Getty Images
Quentin Tarantino has torn into Paul Dano‘s performance in There Will Be Blood, describing the star as “the weakest male actor in [the Screen Actors Guild]”.
On an episode of The Bret Easton Ellis podcast this week, Tarantino listed Paul Thomas Anderson’s 2007 film as his fifth favourite film ofthe 21st century.
The auteur claimed the Western “would stand a good chance at being number 1 or number 2 if it didn’t have a big, giant flaw in it ... and the flaw is Paul Dano”.
Dano starred opposite renowned actor Daniel Day-Lewis as twins Paul and Eli Sunday.
“Obviously, it’s supposed to be a two-hander, and it’s also drastically obvious that it’s not a two-hander. He is weak sauce, man.”
Tarantino went on to describe Dano as “a weak, weak, uninteresting guy,” complaining that Day-Lewis was let down by the younger actor’s Bafta-nominated performance.
“You put him with the weakest male actor in SAG? The limpest dick in the world?”
Dano has a varied body of work, taking on the role of The Riddler in The Batman, and appearing in independent films Little Miss Sunshine and Swiss Army Man.
Paul Dano has enjoyed a celebrated acting career since starring in the 2007 film There Will Be Blood. Photo / Aldara Zarraoa, Getty Images
He has been nominated for 19 acting awards across his illustrious nearly 30-year career.
“I am not saying he is giving a terrible performance, I am saying he’s giving a nonentity performance. I don’t care for him. I don’t care for Owen Wilson, I don’t care for Matthew Lillard,” the Pulp Fiction director said.
Tarantino also claimed Austin Butler would have made a “wonderful” replacement for Dano, the Daily Mail reported.
Butler played Manson family member and convicted murderer Tex Watson in the director’s 2019 ensemble film Once Upon A Time in Hollywood.
He then went on to name Ridley Scott’s 2001 flick Black Hawk Down as the best of the century.
Centred around American soldiers involved in the 1993 Battle of Mogadishu, the war drama stars Ewan McGregor, Josh Hartnett, and Eric Bana and won Oscars for sound and editing.
“It keeps up the intensity for two hours 45 minutes, or whatever it is, and I watched it again recently, my heart was going through the entire runtime of the movie; it had me and never let me go, and I hadn’t seen it in a while.”
He ranked Toy Story 3, Lost in Translation, and Dunkirk, in second, third and fourth places, respectively.
