Paul Dano has not publicly responded to Quentin Tarantino calling him the “weakest male actor in SAG” on a podcast this week, though another actor he criticized on the same episode is sharing his thoughts on the situation.
Matthew Lillard, whom the Oscar winner said he didn’t “care for” on The Bret Easton Ellis Podcast, reacted to the director’s claims at GalaxyCon Columbus.
“Quentin Tarantino this week said he didn’t like me as an actor,” Lillard said at the fan convention in a video shared on TikTok, which prompted boos from the audience. “Eh, whatever. Who gives a shit.”
The Five Nights at Freddy’s star continued, “The point is that it hurts your feelings. It fucking sucks. And you wouldn’t say that to Tom Cruise. You wouldn’t say that to somebody who’s a top-line actor in Hollywood.”
Tarantino slammed Dano on the podcast earlier this week when discussing his picks for the best movies of the 21st century. He ranked Paul Thomas Anderson‘s There Will Be Blood at No. 5, claiming 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 continued. “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.”
Later, he added Lillard and Owen Wilson into his list of actors he’s not fond of: “I’m not saying he’s giving a terrible performance. 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.”
“I’m very popular in this room. I’m not very popular in Hollywood,” Lillard added at GalaxyCon. “Two totally different microcosms, right? And so, you know, it’s humbling and it hurts.”
Dano has not spoken out about Tarantino’s comments, though Matt Reeves did come to the actor’s defense. “Paul Dano is an incredible actor, and an incredible person,” Reeves wrote on X on Thursday.
