Earlier this week, Quentin Tarantino went on the attack, striking, with his most powerful weapons—his very large mouth, and the powerfully nasal voice that lurks within it—at society’s biggest active problem at the moment: Paul Dano’s performance in 2007 Oscar-winner There Will Be Blood. As we reported previously, Tarantino went no-holds-barred on Dano in an appearance on Bret Easton Ellis’ podcast, calling him “a big, giant flaw” in Paul Thomas Anderson’s movie, “the weakest fucking actor in SAG,” and, of course, “the limpest dick in the world.”
Which was a pretty wild swing, not just because Dano is a perfectly fine, and often a very good, performer, but also because this level of weirdly personal attack falls pretty far outside regular Hollywood norms. To the point that a whole lot of people—almost none of whom have actually namechecked Tarantino’s comments, which also took swipes at Matthew Lillard and Owen Wilson—have spoken up to assert that, no, Paul Dano is not the world’s limpest dick. For instance: Matt Reeves, who directed Dano as the jittery Riddler in his 2022 comic book noir flick The Batman, who recently stated on Twitter that Dano is “An incredible actor, and an incredible person.” Or Ben Stiller, who directed Dano in 2018 Showtime crime drama Escape At Dannemora, who self-censored himself with “Paul Dano is f-ing brilliant.” (Shang-Chi star Simu Liu, who’s never worked with Dano, but who has chimed in before when Tarantino runs his mouth, wrote that, “idk man i think paul dano is an incredible actor.”)
We do think it’s kind of amusing that all of these observations are being offered seemingly out of the blue, with no one acknowledging that they’re responding to Tarantino’s unexpected tirade. (Alec Baldwin got the closest, writing, “If you don’t love Paul Dano, shh.”) Per Entertainment Weekly, the most interesting, and specific, defense came from Dano’s There Will Be Blood co-star Colleen Foy, who said on Threads that she actually sat behind Tarantino at the film’s cast and crew screening, and that “He was legit vibing with Paul’s performance. His recent comments are incongruent with his reaction that night.”
As we go to press, no high-profile Hollywood celebrities have similarly spoken up in defense of Matthew Lillard’s dick.
