The filmmaker has a history of similar controversies.

If you’re wondering why your favorite actor might have posted a random photo of actor Paul Dano to their social media accounts recently, you wouldn’t be alone. For the past week, Hollywood has been up in arms in defense of Dano—a treasured actor famous for his work in pictures such as Little Miss Sunshine, There Will Be Blood, and Prisoners—with, perhaps, little to no context for their outpouring of support. It turns out it all stems from a rather scathing sound bite from infamously mouthy director Quentin Tarantino (Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood), who trashed Dano’s acting capabilities in a recent interview on Bret Easton Ellis’ podcast. Tarantino’s track record of ruffling the feathers of his peers makes this just one more notch in his bedpost of uncouth public statements. Now, all of Hollywood is pushing back against the director’s comments by voicing their support for one of this generation’s most beloved—and, yes, commercially underrated—actors. Don’t worry if you missed the drama, because I’m here to break it all down.

What exactly did Tarantino say about Paul Dano and, well, why? 

On a Dec. 2 episode of The Bret Easton Ellis Podcast (as in American Psycho author Ellis), Tarantino revealed his top 20 movies of the 21st century. Fifth on that list is Paul Thomas Anderson’s lauded 2007 film There Will Be Blood, which stars Daniel Day-Lewis and Paul Dano, whose work on the film earned him a BAFTA nomination and high praise and recognition from the industry writ large. In short, Dano’s work in There Will Be Blood is considered one of his highest achievements in acting out of a pool of already great performances.

While discussing the movie, Tarantino—who is known for making graphic and profane films that reference history and pop culture—said that he would have actually rated There Will Be Blood as his first or second pick if it weren’t for one “big, giant flaw”: Paul Dano. Tarantino called Dano “weak sauce” and a “weak, weak, uninteresting guy.” Tarantino continued by saying that Austin Butler “would have been wonderful in that role”—technically Butler would have been 16 years old and looked like this at the time, but I digress—but Dano, instead, is “the weakest fucking actor in SAG” (that’s the Screen Actors Guild) and “the limpest dick in the world.” Tarantino further explained: “I am not saying he is giving a terrible performance, I am saying he’s giving a nonentity performance.”

Ouch. Has Tarantino said this kind of thing before about anyone else? 

To my knowledge, Tarantino hasn’t randomly attacked many beloved actors in precisely this way before. But Dano isn’t even the only actor Tarantino disparages in this particular interview. Tarantino also tells Ellis that he doesn’t “care for” the work of Owen Wilson and Matthew Lillard. Lillard responded to Tarantino’s comments in front of an audience at GalaxyCon, saying: “It fucking sucks. And you wouldn’t say that to Tom Cruise. You wouldn’t say that to somebody who’s a top-line actor in Hollywood. I’m very popular in this room. I’m not very popular in Hollywood. Two totally different microcosms, right? And so, you know, it’s humbling, and it hurts.”

However, this kind of thing isn’t completely out of nowhere for Tarantino. The Academy Award–winning filmmaker, who seems to have very little filter, has gone after many notable figures for various reasons over the decades.

What else has he said?

There was the time Spike Lee called Tarantino’s reliance on the N-word in his films (such as Pulp Fiction and Jackie Brown) into question in 1997. Tarantino responded on The Charlie Rose Show by saying, in part: “As a writer, I demand the right to write any character in the world that I want to write. I demand the right to be them … and to say that I can’t do that because I’m white, but the Hughes brothers can do that because they’re Black, that is racist.” Years later, Lee boycotted Tarantino’s film Django Unchained for similar reasons, adding to the discourse in a 2012 tweet: “American slavery was not a Sergio Leone spaghetti western. It was a holocaust. My ancestors are slaves. Stolen from Africa. I will honor them.” Similarly, Tarantino and Denzel Washington allegedly got into a spat while filming the 1995 film Crimson Tide, apparently over what Washington felt was racist dialogue that Tarantino had added to the script. By 2012, at least, it appears that the two had “buried the hatchet,” according to an interview that the actor had with GQ.

Tarantino also has a history of regrettable comments on famous cases and perpetrators of sexual assault. In a 2003 interview on The Howard Stern Show, Tarantino defended director Roman Polanski—a U.S. fugitive residing in Europe due to charges accusing him of the 1977 drugging and rape of a 13-year-old girl, Samantha Gailey (now Samantha Geimer)—by saying that statutory rape isn’t rape, and that she “wanted to have it.” The interview audio resurfaced in 2018, and Tarantino apologized shortly thereafter, saying, “I incorrectly played devil’s advocate in the debate for the sake of being provocative. I didn’t take Ms. Geimer’s feelings into consideration and for that I am truly sorry.” It also came to light that both Uma Thurman, an actress in many Tarantino films, and Mira Sorvino, Tarantino’s former girlfriend, had both told Tarantino of improper advances and assaults at the hands of Harvey Weinstein over the years. Tarantino has publicly expressed regret a number of times for not doing more than demanding an apology from Weinstein, going on to say to the New York Times in 2017: “What I did was marginalize the incidents” and “I knew enough to do more than I did.”

Then there was the time when Tarantino allegedly threatened to kill David Letterman, and the time when he yelled at an interviewer who questioned the link between movie violence and real-life violence, and I could go on.

OK, well this at least explains why Toni Collette posted a random photo of Paul Dano to her Instagram Stories. Who else has come out to support the actor?

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In the days since Tarantino’s comments were made public, a number of Hollywood heavy-hitters have signaled their support and appreciation for Dano. Similar to Toni Collette, Maya Rudolph—who is also the wife of There Will Be Blood director Paul Thomas Anderson—posted a still from the film of Dano to her Instagram Stories. Reese Witherspoon, Dano’s co-star in Inherent Vice, wrote on Threads: “Paul Dano is an incredibly gifted, versatile actor. More importantly, he is a gentleman.” As did Josh Gad, who wrote on Threads: “Not sure who needs to hear this, but Paul Dano is one of the best actors of our time. Full stop.”

Ben Stiller, who directed Paul in Escape at Dannemora, took to X to say, simply: “Paul Dano is f-ing brilliant.” Matt Reeves, who recently directed Dano in the 2022 film The Batman, also stated on X that “Paul Dano is an incredible actor, and an incredible person.” As did Simu Liu, who also wrote on the platform, “idk man i think paul dano is an incredible actor,” and John Cusack, who wrote: “Paul Dano rocks. Great Actor.”

But it’s not just actors and directors getting in on the Dano love. Even the official Letterboxd X account posted a Dano tribute, a grid of four stills of the actor with the caption “thinking about him 👑.” Perhaps the biggest whammy: A Quentin Tarantino fan account on X, Quentin Tarantino News, posted in solidarity with the actor, writing, “Sorry Quentin but Paul Dano is one of the most underrated actors of his generation.” As one person rightfully questioned in response, “How wrong do you gotta be for your own stan accounts to be rallying against you?”

Well, damn. I guess the lesson here is to not mess with Paul Dano.

Certainly. Leave it to Dano and Tarantino to unite Hollywood in exactly the ways you think they would (for and against, respectively). I’m just selfishly happy that this Hollywood war wasn’t our fault, for once. (Love you, Martin Short.) Now, I’m off to watch Daniel Day-Lewis drink Paul Dano’s milkshake.

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