Biography: Paul Dano

Paul Dano is currently in the midst of a long period of wildly varied, challenging, intriguing work.

Dano most recently received acclaim for his performance as an aspiring rock star and young father in So Yong Kim‘s For Ellen, which Tribeca Films will release on September 5, following the world premiere at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. Dano served as an executive producer.

September 28 marks the release of Looper (TriStar Pictures), Rian Johnson‘s sci-fi thriller that features Dano in a pivotal appearance alongside Joseph Gordon-Levitt. This spring, Dano starred opposite Robert De Niro in Being Flynn (Focus Features), Paul Weitz‘s adaptation of Nick Flynn‘s celebrated memoir Another Bullshit Night in Suck City. Read more

Interview: ‘Ruby Sparks’ Zoe Kazan Talks About Her Screenwriting Debut and Her Worst “Soul Sucking” Survival Job

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 16:06 — 11.1MB)

We could all learn a bit from Zoe Kazan.

Even though she had a resume a lot of us would kill for – she’s appeared on Broadway (A Behanding in Spokane, The Seagull), TV (Bored to Death) and Film (Revolutionary Road, It’s Complicated, Meek’s Cutoff) – the actress started to write because not only was she “bored” from all the time off in-between jobs but because she was “creatively unfulfilled,” she told me. “I’ve gotta do something that makes me feel like my self worth comes from my self and not from whether a casting director likes me,” she went on to say.

With that, she wrote her first play, Absalom, and now, her first screenplay effort, Ruby Sparks, is in theaters. The film stars Kazan and Paul Dano (her boyfriend of 5-years) and was directed by Little Miss Sunshine’s Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris.

The film is about a young novelist (Dano) who is suffering from writers block. When the enchanting Ruby Sparks comes to him in a dream, he frantically starts to write out his idea of a perfect woman, but gets the ultimate surprise when a week later, she turns out to be real.

The film is not your typical romantic comedy and that’s what ultimately works for the film. It’s smart, funny and at times sad and dark and the film is wonderful.

I talked to Zoe recently about the film, if it’s harder to act in something she’s written and what was her worst survival job.

Ruby Sparks is in theaters now.

For the full interview, click the audio link above or download it from iTunes

Read more

Interview: Filmmakers Jonathan Dayton & Valerie Faris on ‘Ruby Sparks’ and How They Work with the Actors On-Set

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 25:27 — 17.5MB)

Welcome back Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris. You’ve been missed.

The directing pair behind 2006’s wonderful Little Miss Sunshine are back with the equally wonderful, Ruby Sparks.

Starring Zoe Kazan (who also makes her screenwriting debut) and Paul Dano, the film is about a young novelist (Dano) who is suffering from writers block. When the enchanting Ruby Sparks (Kazan) comes to him in a dream, he frantically starts to write out his idea of a perfect woman, but gets the ultimate surprise when a week later, she turns out to be real. The film is smart and funny and at times, sad and dark which, for me, made me love it even more. It’s definitely not your typical romantic comedy and that is a good thing.

I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed talking with the pair. Luckily for them, I was only allowed 15 minutes but trust me, I could have chatted with them all day; they are both incredibly intelligent people and smart filmmakers. In the interview below, we talk about how they work with actors, the sometimes difficult process of casting and how they work-shopped – themselves – on one particularly hard scene in the film.

Ruby Sparks is in theaters now.

For the full interview, click the audio link above or download it from iTunes

Read more

Paul Dano on ‘Ruby Sparks’: “Once we were filming, it was all [my character] for me”

Actor Paul Dano found himself surrounded by familiar faces during the production of his latest film, Ruby Sparks.  He co-stars with his real-life girlfriend Zoe Kazan, who also wrote the script, and the movie is directed by Valerie Faris and Jonathan Dayton, the husband-and-wife team who directed Dano in his breakthrough role in Little Miss Sunshine.  But as Dano tells Oregon Live, “The more personal it is the more fun I seem to have.”

Dano reveals that during the writing process it was no secret that Kazan was writing the script as a vehicle for the couple.  Dano says, “About three to five pages into reading it for the first time, I said, ‘Are you writing this for us?’ And she said ‘Yeah.’ She would show me pages and I’d try to a) be a good boyfriend and b) be a good bounce-board and ask good questions.  But I didn’t want to have a say in it, because I like to be surprised, and I want to be challenged, and it was better to engage her in talk about the whole thing and not just about Calvin.” Read more

Trailer: ‘Looper’ Starring Bruce Willis, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Emily Blunt, Paul Dano, Piper Perabo, Jeff Daniels

Looper looks really good. At WonderCon, they had a panel on the upcoming Rian Johnson flick and showed most of what you see here in the trailer below, with a few extra stuff, juicy stuff thrown in.

Synopsis: In the futuristic action thriller Looper, time travel will be invented – but it will be illegal and only available on the black market. When the mob wants to get rid of someone, they will send their target 30 years into the past, where a “looper” – a hired gun, like Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) – is waiting to mop up. Joe is getting rich and life is good… until the day the mob decides to “close the loop,” sending back Joe’s future self (Bruce Willis) for assassination. The film is written and directed by Rian Johnson and also stars Emily Blunt, Paul Dano, and Jeff Daniels.

Director: Rian Johnson
Cast: Bruce Willis, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Emily Blunt, Paul Dano, Noah Segan, Piper Perabo, Jeff Daniels

In Theaters: September 28th Read more

Paul Dano Talks About Acting Drunk in ‘Being Flynn’

Now that There Will Be Blood and My Little Sunshine star Paul Dano has appeared in perhaps his most significant role so far in Being Flynn, the adaptation of Nick Flynn’s memoir Another Bullshit Night in Suck City, he has had a lot to say about the production and what he learned from it. 

In an interview with IndieWire, Dano reveals some of the difficulties he had acting in the film, particularly acting drunk.  He also talks about the reward of working with Robert De Niro, one of the most acclaimed actors in film history. Read more

Paul Dano: “Acting is a very strange thing – your life kinda goes on hold. You disappear, you don’t see your friends, you work such long days”

Paul Dano has been seemingly talking to anyone who will listen about his latest film, Being Flynn, the adaptation of Nick Flynn’s memoir Another Bullshit Night in Suck City, so give the 27 year-old actor credit for promoting it like crazy. 

For instance, he talked to Spinoff Online about acting in such an emotional film and how he manages to maintain his personal life during a long production process.

Though Dano has had emotional roles in the past — particularly his role in There Will Be Blood — he confesses that he found it difficult to move from emotional scene to emotional scene in Being Flynn. Read more

5 Clips from ‘Being Flynn’ starring Robert De Niro, Paul Dano, Julianne Moore & Olivia Thirlby

Here’s 5 clips from Paul Weitz‘s, Being Flynn.

Starring Robert De Niro, Paul Dano, Julianne Moore and Olivia Thirlby, the film follows Nick Flynn who is shocked to have his eccentric and long-absent father, Jonathan reach out to him unexpectedly. Still feeling the loss of his mother in the midst of starting a new relationship with Denise, the last person Nick wants to see is his father. But you can’t outrun fate and slowly Nick comes to realize he has been given the chance to make a real future not only for himself, but for his struggling father too.

Being Flynn will be released in the infamous ‘selected cities’ this weekend. Read more

Paul Dano on How He Prepared to Play Author Nick Flynn in ‘Being Flynn’

Paul Dano has a lot of expectations tied to his latest big movie role, Being Flynn, the adaptation of Nick Flynn’s memoir Another Bullshit Night in Suck City. 

Not only is Dano cast as author Nick Flynn himself, but he is acting opposite Robert De Niro, who plays his con artist father, who Flynn encountered while working at a homeless shelter in Boston.  After being “moved by the script,” Dano explains the preparation he underwent in order to play Flynn in the movie.

After reading the script, Dano’s next step before meeting Flynn was to purchase Flynn’s memoir.  However, he found himself confronted but what could only be called a set-up.  He recalls, “I went to my local bookstore to buy it, and the people at the bookstore said, ‘Oh, no, we have a different copy for you.’ They brought me out a copy – with a note written in it to me from Nick. I was spooked; how did he know what bookstore I’d visit to buy the book?  Turns out he lives in my neighborhood.” Read more

Filmography: Paul Dano

Paul Dano is one of today’s most acclaimed young actors, having made his mark on-screen and on stage.

His breakthrough performance was in the lead role of Michael Cuesta’s L.I.E., in which he starred opposite Brian Cox and for which he earned an Independent Spirit Award.

Mr. Dano was again an Independent Spirit Award nominee for the sleeper hit Little Miss Sunshine, directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, for which he also shared in the Screen Actors Guild Awards and the Broadcast Film Critics Association’s ensemble honors with his fellow actors Alan Arkin, Abigail Breslin, Steve Carell, Toni Collette, and Greg Kinnear.

The following year, he earned a BAFTA Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his dual role opposite Academy Award winner Daniel Day-Lewis in Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood. Read more

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