- Quentin Tarantino listed There Will Be Blood as his #5 favorite film of the 21st century.
- He said that the movie would be #1 or #2 on his list if not for its “weak sauce” supporting actor Paul Dano.
- Tarantino said that “Austin Butler would have been wonderful” in the same role, and said that Dano is “the weakest male actor in SAG.”
Quentin Tarantino loves There Will Be Blood, but he has one major criticism of it.
The Pulp Fiction filmmaker listed Paul Thomas Anderson’s 2007 oil drama as his fifth-favorite movie of the 21st century, but opined that one person is holding it back from claiming the first or second slot on his best-of-the-century list.
“There Will Be Blood would stand a better chance to be in number 1 or number 2 if it didn’t have a big giant flaw in it, and the flaw is Paul Dano,” he said on the most recent episode of The Bret Easton Ellis Podcast, noting that he doesn’t think the actor could keep up with Daniel Day-Lewis’ Oscar-winning performance. “Obviously, it’s supposed to be a two-hander, and it’s also so drastically obvious that it’s not a two-hander.”
Kevin Winter/Getty; Paramount Vantage/ Everett
Tarantino continued to insult Dano’s abilities. “He is weak sauce, man. He’s a weak sister,” he said, noting that he thinks “another terrific actor” could have excelled in the role. “Austin Butler would have been wonderful in that role. [Dano] just such a weak, weak, uninteresting guy.” (Butler was 16 when There Will Be Blood was released in 2007. Tarantino cast Butler in his breakout role in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood 12 years later in 2019.)
Ellis attempted to defend Dano’s performance. “Daniel Day-Lewis also makes it impossible to make it a two-hander because there are aspects of that performance that are so gargantuan,” the American Psycho author said.
“So you put him with the weakest male actor in SAG?” Tarantino responded. “The limpest dick in the world?”
The filmmaker later clarified, “I’m not saying he’s giving a terrible performance. I’m saying he’s giving a non-entity performance.”
Ellis then asked if Tarantino had ever enjoyed Dano in any project. “I don’t care for him,” the filmmaker responded. “I don’t care for him, I don’t care for Owen Wilson, and I don’t care for Matthew Lillard.”
Despite Tarantino’s objections, Dano has enjoyed a fruitful career collaborating with some of the most prominent directors of the century, including Steven Spielberg (The Fabelmans), Steve McQueen (12 Years a Slave, which won the Oscar for Best Picture), Bong Joon-ho (Okja), Denis Villeneuve (Prisoners), Spike Jonze (Where the Wild Things Are), Kelly Reichardt (Meek’s Cutoff), Rian Johnson (Looper), and Ang Lee (Taking Woodstock).
Jamie McCarthy/Getty
He’s also held his own opposite massive stars like Tom Cruise (Knight and Day), Harrison Ford (Cowboys and Aliens), Robert De Niro (Being Flynn), Adam Sandler (Spaceman), Steve Carell (Little Miss Sunshine), Robert Pattinson (The Batman), Michael Caine (Youth), and Daniel Radcliffe (Swiss Army Man).
It’s also worth noting that Dano’s main performance in There Will Be Blood came together more quickly than most of his costars’. He was originally cast as Paul Sunday, a character who appears at the beginning of the film and never returns, but was also cast as Paul’s brother, preacher Eli Sunday, after Kel O’Neill exited that role two weeks into production.
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Dano’s performance was widely acclaimed, earning him a BAFTA nomination for Best Supporting Actor. He ultimately lost to Javier Bardem in No Country for Old Men — the film that also beat There Will Be Blood for Best Picture at the 2008 Oscars.
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