Paul Dano has shared his first public response to Quentin Tarantino’s disparaging comments from back in December.
The director previously called the actor “a big, giant flaw” in There Will be Blood, adding that he’s “such a weak, weak, uninteresting guy. The weakest fucking actor in SAG.” At a Sundance 20th anniversary screening of Little Miss Sunshine, Dano was asked about those remarks and said that the public outpouring of support touched him. “That was really nice,” he told Variety. “I was also incredibly grateful that the world spoke up for me so I didn’t have to.”
While Dano’s magnanimity spared any words for Tarantino himself, his co-workers were more direct. His Little Miss Sunshine co-star Toni Collette spoke up before Dano could even answer, saying, “Are we really going there? Fuck that guy! He must’ve been high… It was just confusing. Who does that?”
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Little Miss Sunshine co-director Jonathan Dayton also chimed in, saying Tarantino’s remarks were an “embarrassment. “I can only think that his rawness of his performance made Tarantino uncomfortable. He couldn’t be easily filed,” Dayton said.
Tarantino’s diss came during an appearance on Bret Easton Ellis’s podcast, where he also took shots at Matthew Lillard and Owen Wilson. Tarantino said he “really [doesn’t] care for Matthew Lillard,” a remark Lillard previously said “hurts your feelings.” In a new interview with Entertainment Weekly, however, he echoed Dano’s own comments about the experience of being slammed by one of Hollywood’s biggest directors. “It was like living through your own wake,” Lillard said of the public standing up to defend him and his fellow actors. “All those R.I.P. emails or tweets and Instagram posts and TikToks, all of the things we see after somebody passes are so sweet. And the reality is I just got to live through all of it firsthand — alive and kicking! I can’t imagine a more lovely reaction to what happened.”
He added, “Nobody has to like me. Nobody has to like any actor out there, obviously. It’s personal preference. I am not everyone’s first choice, that is obvious, but to then have that kind of reaction was beautiful.”
Other big Hollywood names also came to the defense of Dano, Lillard, and Wilson. While accepting an AARP prize earlier this year, George Clooney said he “would be honored to work with” any of the names Tarantino so indelicately dropped.
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