#this is like watching the extra man for paul dano all over again

[joanjettenthusiast]

99% of hotel portofino's watchers being iwtv fans is actually hilarious to me sorry

[faggghaggg]

Fellow creatives on Paul Dano

Shari Springer Berman, co-director, The Extra Man:  It was the fact that he was able to hold the screen with Daniel Day-Lewis.  You have to get a young actor that has the confidence to be on screen and in these intimate scenes with these great actors.  Bob and I were watching “There Will Be Blood”, and a few minutes into seeing Paul and I turned to Bob and I’m like, “He has to be our Louis".  Daniel Day-Lewis was playing this huge oversized character and he’s this magnificent actor, and here’s this young guy who’s holding the screen with him and not saying that much, but you’re still looking at him. He’s got this amazing face and he acts so well in a sorta quiet, subtle way.  He can say so much with his face. Which he did through 90% of Little Miss Sunshine, and you still stared at him.  And because Kevin is such a big character and is talking so much we wanted somebody who could say a lot with just a look or face.  He’s great at staying straight-faced, but he’s also great at balancing out the big energy because he’s an interior actor and he’s great with these sort of bigger, exterior actors.  Also, then when I actually met Paul, he’s got a very poetic soul, a gentle soul, and it comes through in his acting. I felt that Louis was that kind of character. So he seemed like the right person for the role. [Source]

Valerie Faris, co-director, Little Miss Sunshine:  Sometimes when people don't have a line, they want to mime the line or communicate too much, but he was good at holding it all in. His silence was so much more intimidating, in a way, than other actors'. [Source]

Bill Pohlad, director, Love & Mercy: Casting Paul Dano was pretty straight-forward. When you look at actors of that age range, he was at the top of the list in my mind, as far as great actors. He did have a physical resemblance, somewhat. [Source]

Denis Villeneuve, director, Prisoners:  Paul Dano, who really impressed me, permeates the whole film, even when he is not in the picture: he has something of Daniel Day-Lewis, I find. [Source]

Paul Weitz, director, Being Flynn:  Paul doesn’t have vanity on screen. I was a big fan of his, and I think he’s distinct from any other actor of his age group. The only person I could say he’s akin to is Max von Sydow, in the early Bergman films, in terms of his look and presence. One of the reasons that I wanted Dano is because he acts with a chip on his shoulder – he’s quite aggressive, actually. But when the camera’s not rolling, he’s a good guy and thoughtful and respectful and very smart. And he’d acted twice with Daniel Day-Lewis, and I know that Daniel Day-Lewis is an intimidating presence, so I felt like he was not going to be intimidated and would actually challenge Bob while the camera was rolling. I thought that it was going to be the best of both worlds, where I’d have a good collaborator, in terms of the overall story, but at the same time, someone who would absolutely go for it, no matter what, when the camera was rolling. It felt like there was something fresh about it. [Source][Source]

So Yong Kim, director, For Ellen:  Everything seemed very organic once Paul came on board, everything kind of fit into place. I’m really grateful for that collaboration, because Paul is a great cinephile, and he’s seen so many films, and he has a great language of cinema, so it was for me a great learning experience because I also learned from the way he worked. He’s a very devoted actor, he’s done months of research, and also we developed this whole back story of the character. Paul and I are kind of the same, we don’t ever come out and say no, I hate that. He’d be like no, maybe not like that. So we were always kind of eliminating things and finally focusing on the exact one. So once the filming started he never had questions like ‘should he be like this or like that?’ He knew the character absolutely. I felt I was just rolling the camera and capturing the moments. I feel almost like I’m spoiled. I had this chance to work with Paul, and I kind of expect all of the actors in the future to be that dedicated and that focused, and that excited about films and storytelling. Do you know what I mean? Now my expectation is I want that or nothing, all the time. [Source][Source]

Dagur Kári, director, The Good Heart:  Dano has a very unusual charisma for an American actor. He has the innocence which was essential for the role, but at the same time he has a very old soul, and the combination is interesting to look at. [Source]

Daniel Day-Lewis, co-star, There Will Be Blood, The Ballad of Jack and Rose:  I certainly knew enough about Paul, and I hope he’d say the same, to know that he’d be somebody I’d know I wanted on my side in a scrap. Paul is a strong individual. He's serious about his work, and he's right where he needs to be at any given moment. He's really intelligent but it's not an intelligence that gets in the way of the work. You don't have to talk things over with him. I admired him so much in Rebecca's film. We never really spoke and we never met socially during that time because the work led us in different directions. He understood implicitly, as I did, that it was important to keep that distance between us. But we got to know each other a little bit after that and I like him so much as a man – which always helps – but as an actor I think he’s undoubtedly one of the most promising young actors working at the moment. I was delighted at the thought of working with Paul again. He had two days to prepare for the part. He came out on a Friday evening and we were shooting scenes on Monday with him. And I swear to God on set that day he was a recognisable, fully formed character. I daresay he was slightly unsettled in himself, but you wouldn’t have guessed it. He was just right there. [Source][Source]

Paul Thomas Anderson, director, There Will Be Blood:  I called Rebecca Miller to tell her how much I loved the film, but really the first question on my mind was, 'Who the hell was that?' Paul certainly got a good recommendation from Rebecca and from Daniel. I was too dumb to give him the part at that time. We'd had an actor and it didn't work out. We had Paul and he was in a small part and we thought, 'God, why is he in such a small part?' [Source]

Brian Cox, co-star, War and Peace:  Pierre’s charm has an awful lot to do with Paul himself. He is a surprisingly quiet, ponderous presence. Put him in front of a camera, though, and he’s absolutely magnetic. I think he’s a wonderful young man, and very talented. He’s got something else going on. A lot of Americans are very easy in their bodies, but Paul can actually portray people who are not easy in their bodies. He has a great gift of being… awkward. He’s not awkward in real life; he’s very together, quite shy, quite private. He also doesn’t have that ‘Hollywood’ face. He has a real face. I thought it was genius to cast him as Pierre. [Source]

[snacktalks]

Momofuku Cornflake Chocolate Chip Marshmallow Cookie (with guest review by Jesse Locke)

The Momofuku Milk bar is an incredible little snack shop inside the Momofuku restaurant in Toronto. Meganne and I found these delicious treats to have during a movie in the afternoon. We invited our good friend Jesse over, and I tricked him into doing a little review for this cookie. Jesse recently wrote a book about the 1970′s rock band Simply Saucer. It is called Heavy Metalloid Music. He also play drums in the bands Tough Age and Century Palm. Check all of these things out if you like! 

I’ll start off with my review, and get that out of the way. The cookie was very chewy, and extremely rich. I may not have the same palate for sweets like I used to, but I couldn’t eat the cookie in one go. I nursed  the thing. It wasn’t massive or anything, but was full of many flavours. The marshmallow made it sticky and chewy, which was great for pulling pieces apart without making much of a mess. It was a great combination of flavours, and the cornflakes probably helped make it a little more crunchy. It was probably one of the best cookies I have ever eaten. My favourite cookie used to be chocolate chip macadamia nut, but that doesn’t even hold a candle to this bad boy. I think it is more of a special occasion cookie than anything, due to the sweetness of the snack. We did also eat these cookies with Tahitian Treats, which are chock full of sugar. I am sure that didn’t help. 

Jesse’s Review

Jeremy invited me over to his apartment to watch a movie and surprised me with this fancy cookie from Momofuku. He paired it with an old school Tahitian Treat soda, which immediately got Porno For Pyros’ “Tahitian Moon” from Big Shiny Tunes 1 stuck in my head. I didn’t have a problem with that. The marshmallow part of the cookie made it extra sticky/chewy, which was great because it slowed me down and made me savour it instead of gobbling the whole thing in a few bites. The chocolate wasn’t too sweet, and I would give the snacking experience five chunks out of five.

If you’re curious, we watched Swiss Army Man, a troubling castaway story. Paul Dano stars as the manic unreliable narrator with an 8-year-old boy’s understanding of human relationships. Daniel Radcliffe co-stars as a reanimated dead man with magical powers of bodily functions (again: 8-year-old) and the onscreen charisma of Wilson the volleyball. I had a few laughs and I’ve never seen a movie like this before but I don’t think anything else like it needs to exist. Thanks to Jeremy, David Chang, The Daniels, Perry Farrell, Meganne, and Winston.