Paul Dano

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Paul Dano
Paul Dano at TIFF 2014.jpg
Born Paul Franklin Dano
(1984-06-19) June 19, 1984 (age 39)
New York City, New York, U.S.
Alma mater Pace University
Occupation Actor, film producer
Years active 1998–present
Partner(s) Zoe Kazan (2007–present)

Paul Franklin Dano /ˈdn/ (born June 19, 1984)[1] is an American actor and producer. Dano started his career on Broadway before making his film debut in The Newcomers (2000).

He won the Independent Spirit Award for Best Debut Performance for his role in L.I.E. (2002) and received accolades for his role as Dwayne Hoover in Little Miss Sunshine (2006). For his dual roles as Paul & Eli Sunday in There Will Be Blood (2007), Dano was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Supporting Actor. He has also received accolades for roles such as John Tibeats in 12 Years a Slave (2013) and Alex Jones in Prisoners (2013). His recent acting portrayal of musician Brian Wilson in Love & Mercy (2014), earned him his first Golden Globe nomination in the category of Best Supporting Actor.

Early life

Dano was born in New York City, New York, the son of Gladys (née Pipp) and Paul A. Dano. He has a younger sister, Sarah.[2][3][4] His father is of Slovak descent, and his mother is of Austrian, Swedish, and Bohemian Czech ancestry.[5]

He spent the first few years of his childhood in New York City and initially attended the Browning School, while his father worked as a businessman in New York.[6][7] While he was a child, Dano's family moved to New Canaan, Connecticut, finally settling in Wilton, Connecticut.[6] Dano continued his education there at Wilton High School, graduating in 2002 and attending Eugene Lang College in New York City.[6] He was involved in community theatre, and while performing in New Canaan, his parents were encouraged to take him to New York.[6]

Career

At age 10, Dano was noted for roles in classical plays on Broadway, making his debut at age 12 in the John Tillinger directed revival of Inherit the Wind along with George C. Scott and Charles Durning.[8] He appeared in an episode of the sitcom Smart Guy and a minor role in the 2000 family drama The Newcomers, as well playing the part of Patrick Whalen, in a few episodes of The Sopranos in season 4.

Dano acted in his first major film role when he was 16, playing the character of Howie Blitzer, a teenage boy who becomes involved with a middle-aged ephebophile, played by Brian Cox, in L.I.E. (2001).[9] He then appeared in the TV movie Too Young to Be a Dad as a high school student whose life is disrupted when his girlfriend becomes pregnant. In 2004 he played a small role as young Martin Asher in Taking Lives with Angelina Jolie and Ethan Hawke. In 2005, he played supporting roles in The King with Gael Garcia Bernal, and The Ballad of Jack and Rose with Daniel Day-Lewis.

Dano in December 2007.

He came to greater attention in 2006, when he played a voluntarily mute teenager as part of an ensemble in the comedic drama Little Miss Sunshine, which received critical acclaim and collective awards for its cast. Dano's work with Daniel Day-Lewis led to a dual role opposite him in his next film, Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will Be Blood, playing identical twin brothers Eli and Paul Sunday. This earned him a BAFTA nomination for Best Supporting Actor, and brought him positive reviews, with Texas Monthly saying that his performance was "so electric that the movie sags whenever he's not around."[10] and Peter Travers remarking "All praise to the baby-faced Dano...for bringing sly cunning and unexpected ferocity to Plainview's most formidable opponent."[11] Rolling Stone magazine included Dano in its Hot List for 2007, calling his performance style "Daniel Day-Lewis + Billy Crudup × Johnny Depp."[12]

Dano appeared in several additional Broadway productions including A Thousand Clowns at the Roundabout Theatre, and in the Ethan Hawke directorial debut Things We Want during its 2007 Off-Broadway run.

In 2008, he starred in Gigantic, a poorly-reviewed film about a man seeking to adopt a Chinese baby, co-starring Zooey Deschanel. He reunited with Brian Cox in 2009's The Good Heart, a low-budget English-language Icelandic film. He provided the voice of one of the creatures in the film adaptation of Where the Wild Things Are. He played a genius inventor in 2010's Knight and Day, an action thriller starring Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz. The same year he appeared in Meek's Cutoff, a well-reviewed historical drama. In 2011, he had a supporting role in the big-budget science fiction film Cowboys and Aliens.

Dano appeared in three feature films in 2012: Ruby Sparks, as a writer whose fictional character (played by Zoe Kazan, the film's writer and Dano's girlfriend) inexplicably appears as a real person; time-travel thriller Looper, in a supporting role with Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Bruce Willis; and with Robert De Niro in Being Flynn as the film's writer Nick Flynn, about his relationship with his father. In 2014, Dano played a younger version of the Beach Boys founder Brian Wilson, with John Cusack as an older version of Wilson, in the biopic Love & Mercy, for which he received a Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. In January 2016, Dano played Pierre Bezukhov in the BBC's six-part adaptation of Tolstoy''s War and Peace.[13]

Personal life

Dano has been dating actress and screenwriter Zoe Kazan since 2007.[14][15] He is a vocalist and lead guitar player in his band Mook.[16]

Filmography

Film

Year Film Title Role Notes
2000 The Newcomers Joel
2001 L.I.E. Howie Blitzer Directors' Week Award for Best Actor
Independent Spirit Award for Best Debut Performance
Grand Jury Award for Outstanding Actor in a Feature Film
Stockholm International Film Festival Award for Best Actor
2002 Too Young to Be a Dad Matt Freeman Television film
2002 The Emperor's Club Martin Blythe
2004 The Girl Next Door Klitz
2004 Taking Lives Young Asher
2005 The Ballad of Jack and Rose Thaddius
2005 The King Paul
2006 Little Miss Sunshine Dwayne Hoover Awards Circuit Community Award for Best Cast Ensemble (shared with Greg Kinnear, Toni Collette, Steve Carell, Alan Arkin and Abigail Breslin)
Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Young Performer
Phoenix Film Critics Society Award for Best Cast
Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture
Nominated — Empire Award for Best Male Newcomer
Nominated — Gotham Award for Best Ensemble Cast
Nominated — Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Male
2006 Fast Food Nation Brian
2007 Weapons Chris
2007 There Will Be Blood Paul Sunday / Eli Sunday Nominated — Awards Circuit Community Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role
Nominated — BAFTA Award for Best Supporting Actor
Nominated — Chlotrudis Award for Best Supporting Actor
Nominated — Detroit Film Critics Society Award for Best Supporting Actor
Nominated — Golden Schmoes Award for Best Supporting Actor
Nominated — International Online Cinema Award for Best Supporting Actor
Nominated — Online Film & Television Association Award for Best Supporting Actor
Nominated — Village Voice Film Poll Award for Best Supporting Actor
2008 Explicit Ills Rocco
2008 Light and the Sufferer Don ("Light")
2008 Gigantic Brian Weathersby
2009 Taking Woodstock VW Guy
2009 The Good Heart Lucas
2009 Where the Wild Things Are Alexander Voice
2010 The Extra Man Louis Ives
2010 Meek's Cutoff Thomas Gately
2010 Knight and Day Simon Feck
2011 Cowboys & Aliens Percy Dolarhyde
2012 Being Flynn Nick Flynn
2012 Ruby Sparks Calvin Weir-Fields
2012 Looper Seth
2012 For Ellen Joby
2013 12 Years a Slave John Tibeats Black Reel Award for Best Ensemble
Boston Online Film Critics Association Award for Best Ensemble
Southeastern Film Critics Association Award for Best Ensemble (Runner-Up)
Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association Award for Best Ensemble
Nominated — Alliance of Women Film Journalists Award for Best Ensemble Cast
Nominated — Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Acting Ensemble
Nominated — Detroit Film Critics Society Award for Best Ensemble Cast
Nominated — Georgia Film Critics Association Award for Best Ensemble
Nominated — Phoenix Film Critics Society Award for Best Cast
Nominated — San Diego Film Critics Society Award for Best Performance by an Ensemble
Nominated — Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture
2013 Prisoners Alex Jones National Board of Review Award for Best Cast
Nominated — San Diego Film Critics Society Award for Best Performance by an Ensemble
Nominated — Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association Award for Best Ensemble
2014 Love & Mercy Brian Wilson Boston Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actor
Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actor
Florida Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor
Gotham Award for Best Actor
New York Film Critics Online Award for Best Actor
San Francisco Film Critics Circle for Best Actor
Pending — Alliance of Women Film Journalists Award for Best Supporting Actor
Pending — Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Supporting Actor
Pending — Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Male
Pending — London Film Critics' Circle Award for Actor of the Year
Pending — North Carolina Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actor
Pending — Satellite Award for Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture
Nominated — Detroit Film Critics Society Award for Best Supporting Actor
Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor — Motion Picture
Nominated — St. Louis Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actor
Nominated — San Diego Film Critics Society Award for Best Supporting Actor
Nominated — San Francisco Film Critics Circle for Best Supporting Actor
Nominated — Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actor
2015 Youth Jimmy Tree Italian title: La giovinezza
2015 Swiss Army Man Kent Post-production

Television

Year Title Role Notes
1998 Smart Guy Nicholas Episode: "She Got Game"
2002–2004 The Sopranos Patrick Whalen 2 episodes
2015 Codes of Conduct Jared Rotmensen Second collaboration with Steve McQueen
2016 War and Peace Pierre Bezukhov 6 episodes

Theatre

Year Title Role Theater References
1996 Inherit the Wind Howard Royale Theatre
1997-1998 A Christmas Carol Street Urchin The Theater at Madison Square Garden
2007 Things We Want Charles Acorn Theatre [17]
2010-2011 A Free Man of Color Meriwether Lewis Vivian Beaumont Theater

References

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  2. Grandjean, Pat, "First People" column, item titled "The Buzz", Connecticut Magazine, November 2006, page 17
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  10. Kelly, Christopher. "Crude Truth". Texas Monthly. 35 (12):68–70. December 2007.
  11. Travers, Peter. "There Will Be Blood." Rolling Stone. (1044):70. 2008-01-24
  12. Savage, Lesley (2007-10-18), "THE NEXT GENERATION". Rolling Stone. (1037):76
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External links

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