Paul Dano on Brian Wilson, Band Days, and Choosing Acting
Get the Culture newsletter
Daily culture — film, music, books, the trends and ideas worth your attention. Free.
- Paul Dano spent time with Brian Wilson before filming Love & Mercy, sang with Wilson's touring band, and filmed in the studio where they recorded Pet Sounds, though Wilson gave little direct performance feedback — 'it was more getting to know each other and learning about his life.'
- Little Miss Sunshine directors initially couldn't see what Dano was doing in his silent first-half scenes and asked for 'a little more,' but recognized the work on playback — a moment Dano calls 'a wash of relief.'
- Dano read Tolstoy's War & Peace before filming the BBC adaptation and calls it 'probably the greatest book ever written,' singling out 'extremely detailed passages' and 'a really interesting' epilogue.
- Dano dismisses his high-school band Cherry Revision with 'Nobody needs to know,' but concedes that at 20 or 22 'my band meant everything' and a part of him 'would have liked to be a rock star' — he chose acting because 'there's only so much time.'
- Swiss Army Man, filmed right after War & Peace, was a deliberate return to 'small, creative films with friends,' and Dano was sold on the Daniels' script by the farting jetski scene on page two.
- Dano says he approaches every character without judgment, even the Riddler, and tries to find 'an emotional way into' morally fraught roles; for The Wizard of the Kremlin, he was drawn to its 'deeply intelligent and relevant' depiction of modern Russian power, while stressing 'it is a film — it's not a documentary.'
Why it matters: Career-spanning reader Q&As rarely surface an actor's process this directly: Dano reveals Little Miss Sunshine directors almost couldn't see his silence, admits Okja briefly changed his eating habits, and quietly explains why acting beat rock stardom — not from lack of love, but from limited time. The through-line he sketches is empathy without judgment, whether the role is a silent teen, the Riddler, or a Kremlin insider.
