Cool as a cucumber, this one.
Photo: Theo Wargo/Getty Images
Never forget: Paul Dano has shooters. A lot of very, very famous and funny shooters. At a 20th anniversary screening of Little Miss Sunshine at the Sundance Film Festival, Dano expressed gratitude for the people who defended him after Quentin Tarantino tried to slam his performance in There Will Be Blood. “That was really nice,” Dano told Variety. “I was also incredibly grateful that the world spoke up for me so I didn’t have to.”
In December 2025, Tarantino said Dano was “weakest fucking actor in SAG” on Bret Easton Ellis’s podcast. And just like that, dozens of Dano defenders came out of the woodwork to praise Eli Sunday and mock Tarantino. George Clooney said he’d be “honored” to work with Dano, Ben Stiller called him “brilliant,” and Zach Woods called Tarantino “one of the masters … of ripping off Asian directors, you bitch!” Dano’s squad came to Sundance, too, with Toni Colette popping off at the Little Miss Sunshine screening. “Fuck that guy! He must’ve been high,” she said. “It was just confusing. Who does that?” Little Miss Sunshine co-director Jonathan Dayton added, “I can only think that his rawness of his performance made Tarantino uncomfortable. He couldn’t be easily filed.” Take that, QT. Streets are saying you’re uncomfortable with ambiguity and deep feeling.
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