“Quentin Tarantino this week said he didn’t like me as an actor,” Lillard said to boos from the crowd. “It hurts your feelings, it f**king sucks.”Lillard caught a stray in the director’s rant about Paul Thomas Anderson‘s “There Will Be Blood” earlier this week. Speaking on Bret Easton Ellis’ podcast, Tarantino said Paul Dano was a “big, giant flaw” in the movie. Tarantino added that Dano belongs to a class of actors he doesn’t care for that includes Owen Wilson and Lillard.
“He’s just such a weak, weak, uninteresting guy,” Tarantino said. “Austin Butler would have been wonderful in that role,”
On stage over the weekend, Lillard said he was taking potshots at easy targets.
“He wouldn’t say that to Tom Cruise. He wouldn’t say that to somebody who’s a top-line actor in Hollywood,” Lillard said.
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Other actors came to Dano’s defense after Tarantino’s dig began to spread. Simu Liu and Alec Baldwin both lauded the actor, with Liu posting on X that Dano was an “incredible actor.” Baldwin shared a video to Instagram, calling on any Dano haters to be quiet.
