Like Daniel Plainview, Quentin Tarantino drags Paul Dano

Quentin Tarantino calls Paul Dano "the weakest fucking actor in SAG," which feels like a stretch.

By Matt Schimkowitz  |  December 2, 2025 | 8:32pm
(Photo by Andreas Rentz/Getty Images)
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Like Daniel Plainview, Quentin Tarantino drags Paul Dano

Few directors have a gulf between opinion and talent like Quentin Tarantino. And yet, because of his encyclopedic knowledge of grindhouse cinema, his willingness to bury a famous person, and his ability to make some of the best American films of the last 40 years, we can’t help but listen to him go off on whatever is stuck in his craw. This is the guy who said on a podcast that Hunger Games author Suzanne Collins should be sued for ripping off Battle Royale, as if he never ripped off a movie before—let alone Battle Royale. Nevertheless, on that same podcast— unfortunately, the Bret Easton Ellis Podcast—Tarantino took an even bigger swing: Paul Dano’s performance in There Will Be Blood as Paul and Eli Sunday. Not only does Mr. Tarantino believe Dano is “weak sauce,” but he also believes Dano is “the weakest fucking actor in SAG.”

To be clear, he had wonderful things to say about the film, Daniel Day-Lewis’ star turn, and director Paul Thomas Anderson’s “old Hollywood craftsmanship without trying to be like that.” The movie would even “stand a good chance at being [his] number one or number two” favorite film of the 21st century, “if it didn’t have a big, giant flaw in it.”

“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.” After drinking all of Dano’s milkshake, Tarantino says he would’ve preferred Austin Butler in the role because “[Dano] is just such a weak, weak, uninteresting guy. The weakest fucking actor in SAG.”

We respectfully disagree with Mr. Tarantino. Part of Day-Lewis’ strength comes from having a screen partner like Dano. Dano offers the film a different register and menace, one that contrasts Day-Lewis’ Daniel Plainview, helping the Oscar-winner reach the film’s greatest heights. But again, at the end of the day, these are all just one person’s opinions. In the same interview, while naming Midnight In Paris the 10th best movie of the century (another wild take), he also swiped at Owen Wilson, whom he “really can’t stand.”

 
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