There are plenty of ways for a filmmaker to revisit a beloved modern classic. A Q&A. A director’s commentary track. A thoughtful essay. Or, if you’re Quentin Tarantino, a podcast appearance where admiration and unnecessary cruelty arrive in the same breath, then get diced into viral clips for the algorithm.
That’s essentially what happened after Tarantino’s recent comments on Paul Thomas Anderson’s “There Will Be Blood,” where the Oscar-winning filmmaker argued the film’s greatness is undercut by Paul Dano’s performance, calling him “weak” and “uninteresting,” and then escalating the critique into a personal insult: “He’s the weakest fcking actor in SAG.”
The thing is, the internet didn’t take the bait in the usual way at all. Instead of Dano becoming the week’s designated punching bag, plenty of people in the industry moved quickly to push back, rejecting the idea that Tarantino’s rant deserved to become a lazy new “consensus” about the film in 2026 (Zach Woods’ comedic rebuke was especially scathing).
Dano, for his part, remained silent, but finally addressed it on the ground at the Sundance Film Festival ahead of a 20th anniversary screening of “Little Miss Sunshine” (released by Fox Searchlight), when asked about the public defense that followed Tarantino’s comments. He didn’t posture, didn’t counterpunch, didn’t play the “I wish him well” game. He just acknowledged the support and moved on in a classy manner: “That was really nice. I was also incredibly grateful that the world spoke up for me, so I didn’t have to.”
But the moment didn’t belong solely to Dano’s restraint, because standing beside him was his “Little Miss Sunshine” co-star Toni Collette, and she wasn’t interested in letting the conversation pretend this was normal, healthy “film discourse.” As the topic came up, she cut in with a bluntness that instantly clarified what a lot of people were thinking: “Are we really going there? F*ck that guy! He must’ve been high… It was just confusing. Who does that??”
The film’s co-directors were similarly unimpressed. Jonathan Dayton called Tarantino’s remarks an “embarrassment,” and suggested the attack may have less to do with craft than with discomfort at what Dano is doing in Anderson’s film: “I can only think that [the] rawness of his performance made Tarantino uncomfortable.” His co-director and partner, Valerie Faris, pointed to something more revealing than the original insult: “You know what was interesting was the people coming out to defend Paul. There was immediately… he is loved by so many. He is so smart.”
What’s striking about all of this isn’t that Tarantino has a harsh opinion —he’s built part of his public persona on having harsh opinions. It’s the mismatch between the target and the venue: an actor being publicly dragged, in graphic terms, for work in a film released nearly two decades ago, with the full knowledge that the ugliest lines will travel the farthest. It’s also a misread of our current era. Tarantino used to run his mouth all the time, and no one blinked, but it’s been several years since he called someone out, and given our new-ish climate of empathy and compassion, he’s never faced such a vitriolic backlash, and frankly, was likely taken aback. Given his pro-IDF comments in recent months, you might be looking at a filmmaker who once captured the zeitgeist and may now be totally out of touch with it.
And maybe that’s why Dano’s answer is the most useful thing anyone said. Not because it “wins” the argument, but because it refuses the premise of the argument: he didn’t treat it like a worthy debate; he treated it like a moment he didn’t need to prolong. Gratitude, then exit.
- Rodrigo Perez
- Rodrigo Perez
- Rodrigo Perez
- Rodrigo Perez
- Rodrigo Perez
- Rodrigo Perez
- Rodrigo Perez
- Rodrigo Perez
- Rodrigo Perez
