Matt Reeves Defends Paul Dano After Quentin Tarantino Calls Him “Weak Sauce”

Filmmaker Matt Reeves added his voice to the wave of praise for Paul Dano — an outpouring that was prompted by Quentin Tarantino dissing Dano as “the weakest fucking actor in SAG.”

via: THR

“Paul Dano is an incredible actor, and an incredible person,” Reeves wrote on X Thursday, a few days after a viral podcast appearance in which Tarantino said that Dano’s performance in There Will Be Blood lowered his opinion of the movie, which starred Daniel Day-Lewis in an Oscar-winning performance.

During an appearance on The Bret Easton Ellis Podcast, Tarantino ranked his best movies of the 21st century, and named the 2007 Paul Thomas Anderson feature his No. 5 of movie. He said it “would stand a better chance to be in number one or number two if it didn’t have a big giant flaw in it.”

“And the flaw is Paul Dano,” Tarantino said. “Obviously, it’s supposed to be a two-hander, and it’s also so drastically obvious that it’s not a two-hander. … He is weak sauce, man. He’s a weak sister.”

Dano, who played Edward Nasthon/The Riddler in Reeves’ The Batman, has turned in performances for a number of top directors, including Steven Speilberg and Denis Villeneuve.

“I’m not saying he’s giving a terrible performance,” Tarantino added of Dano’s work in There Will Be Blood. “I’m saying he’s giving a non-entity [performance]. I don’t care for him. I don’t care for Owen Wilson, I don’t care for Matthew Lillard.”

Reeves is gearing up to shoot The Batman Part II, with Scarlett Johansson joining the cast in an undisclosed role.