Almost two months after Quentin Tarantino slammed Paul Dano, the “Looper” star revealed his feelings about the situation and the support he received from other Hollywood celebrities afterward.
“That was really nice,” Dano, 41, told “Variety” in an interview published on Wednesday, January 28. “I was also incredibly grateful that the world spoke up for me so I didn’t have to.”
Hollywood Quickly Rallied Around Paul Dano
GettyShortly after Tarantino’s remarks at the time, several people spoke out in support of the “Cowboys & Aliens” star including Ben Stiller, Reese Witherspoon, and Simu Liu.
The support has been ongoing, and when “Variety” caught up with Dano and his “Little Miss Sunshine” costars at the Sundance Film Festival, they did not mince words.
“Are we really going there? [Expletive] that guy!” Toni Collette told the outlet. “He must’ve been high… It was just confusing. Who does that?”
Directors Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris also chimed in.
“I can only think that his rawness of his performance made Tarantino uncomfortable,” Dayton, 68, said. “He couldn’t be easily filed.”
Faris, 67, added, “You know what was interesting was the people coming out to defend Paul. There was immediately… he is loved by so many. He is so smart.”
In early December 2025, during an appearance on Bret Easton Ellis’ podcast, Tarantino, 62, had some harsh words for Dano and called him “the weakest [expletive] actor in SAG.” The “Pulp Fiction” director went on to diss his performance in “There Will Be Blood,” which Dano starred opposite of Daniel Day Lewis.
“[Dano] is weak sauce, man. He is the weak sister. [Daniel] is eating him [alive]. Austin Butler would have been wonderful in that role. He’s just such a weak, weak, uninteresting guy,” Tarantino said during the interview. “Daniel Day-Lewis shows that he doesn’t need a strong foil. The movie needs it. He doesn’t need anything. It’s supposed to be a two-hander and it’s not!”
Quentin Tarantino Also Slammed ‘Scream’ Star Matthew Lillard
GettyDano wasn’t the only actor Tarantino took aim at. He also told Ellis, 61, that he “didn’t care for” Matthew Lillard and Owen Wilson.
It didn’t take long for Lillard to respond.
“Quentin Tarantino this week said he didn’t like me as an actor,” the “Scooby Doo” star said while speaking to a crowd at GalaxyCon on December 6, 2025. “Eh, whatever, who gives a [expletive].”
Lillard later admitted that Tarantino’s remarks “hurt his feelings.”
However, like Dano, he received a flood of tributes and support from fans and fellow Hollywood stars, and just this week he told Entertainment Weekly it was like “living through [his] own wake.”
“All those R.I.P. emails or tweets and Instagram posts and TikToks, all of the things we see after somebody passes are so sweet,” he told the outlet on Wednesday, January 28. “And the reality is I just got to live through all of it firsthand — alive and kicking! I can’t imagine a more lovely reaction to what happened.”
