Quentin Tarantino has savagely criticised Paul Dano’s “weak” and “uninteresting” performance in There Will Be Blood.
During an appearance on The Bret Easton Ellis Podcast, the Pulp Fiction filmmaker revealed his 10 favourite films of the 21st century, listing Paul Thomas Anderson’s 2007 epic period drama at number five.
He then claimed that he would have placed it higher if it weren’t for Dano, who he thought couldn’t keep up with Daniel Day-Lewis’s Oscar-winning performance.
“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, reports Entertainment Weekly.
“Obviously, it’s supposed to be a two-hander, and it’s also so drastically obvious that it’s not a two-hander,” he added.
Tarantino continued to insult Dano, calling him a “weak sauce” and “just such a weak, weak, uninteresting guy.”
American Psycho author Ellis came to the actor’s defence, insisting that it would be “impossible” to keep up with Day-Lewis’s “gargantuan” performance as ruthless oil baron Daniel Plainview.
“So, you put him with the weakest male actor in SAG? The limpest d**k in the world?” Tarantino argued, adding, “I’m not saying he’s giving a terrible performance. I’m saying he’s giving a non-entity performance.”
He added that his Once Upon A Time in Hollywood star Austin Butler would have been “wonderful” as preacher Eli Sunday, even though he was only a teenager when the film was made.
When Ellis asked Tarantino if he liked any other Dano performances, Quentin Tarantino replied, “I don’t care for him… I don’t care for him, I don’t care for Owen Wilson, and I don’t care for Matthew Lillard.”
