Kill Bill director Quentin Tarantino did not mince words about what he thinks of actor Paul Dano’s work in There Will Be Blood, the classic 2007 film Dano co-starred in with Daniel Day-Lewis.

The Reservoir Dogs director was counting down his top movies of the century on Bret Easton Ellis’s podcast when he got to fellow director Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood. Tarantino placed the 2007 film in the number five slot on his list, but he also noted that it would have ranked at number one if it weren’t for one thing.

Tarantino said there was one “big flaw” in There Will Be Blood. And it was actor Paul Dano.

Dano played Eli Sunday to Daniel Day-Lewis’ driven and psychotic Daniel Plainview. Tarantino says the film was clearly meant to be a “two-hander” pitting Daniel Day-Lewis’ Plainview against Dano’s Eli Sunday. But to Tarantino, it just didn’t work. He blames Dano.

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

Dano, Tarantino insisted, is “uninteresting” as an actor and even suggested that actor Austin Butler would have made a better Eli Sunday.

Bret Easton Ellis pointed out that the film is still a powerful one and that the weight of the effort by Daniel Day-Lewis drives it. Tarantino was not put off from his assessment.

“So you put him with the weakest male actor in SAG?” an incredulous Tarantino asked. “I’m not saying he’s giving a terrible performance. I’m saying he’s giving a non-entity performance.”

The Once Upon a Time in Hollywood director said he simply has no use for Dano. And he named a few others that he puts in that same category.

“I don’t care for him, I don’t care for Owen Wilson, and I don’t care for Matthew Lillard,” he exclaimed.

Despite Tarantino’s dour pronouncement on Dano, the actor does have some accolades. He was nominated for a BAFTA for There Will Be Blood, for one. He has several Emmy and Golden Globe nominations. He won a Gotham Award for Love & Mercy. And he co-starred in the Oscar-winning 2013 film 12 Years a Slave.

Tarantino explained why he chose the films tom put on on his list.

“What is iconic to me, what is memorable to me, rather than to match wits with the Arthurs of the world, it’s these experiences,” Tarantino said. “The idea was I didn’t look up anything, I just picked 20 movies straight from my brain, and if I couldn’t remember it, then it doesn’t make it. It had to be memorable. There’s a big thing about the filmmaking. Most of them have aggressive filmmaking. I’m impressed by that.”

Tarantino named twenty films as the top films of the century.

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