George Clooney is joining a chorus of Hollywood voices defending Paul Dano and other actors whom Quentin Tarantino has bashed.
Clooney, 64, shouted out Dano, 41, Owen Wilson, 57, Matthew Lillard, 55, at the AARP Movies for Grownups Awards on Saturday, Jan. 10, where he accepted Best Actor for his performance in Jay Kelly. After he noted during his speech that his latest movie is “about… and made by people who love actors,” he said that he does not “enjoy watching people be cruel to actors.”
“By the way, Paul Dano, Owen Wilson, and Matthew Lillard? I would be honored to work with those actors. Honored!” Clooney said. “We’re living in a time of cruelty, and we don’t need to be adding to it. I’m very happy to be here. Very happy to see all of you, and thank you for this, and thank you for… It’s gonna be a long, tough couple of years, but we’ll all get through it together, okay?”
Tarantino, 62, sparked controversy when he expressed negative feelings about Dano, Wilson and Lillard’s acting abilities during a December appearance on the The Bret Easton Ellis Podcast. He was on the podcast to reveal his picks for the top movies of the 21st century so far.
The Pulp Fiction writer-director described Dano as “such a weak, uninteresting guy” and suggested Dano is “the weakest male actor in [the Screen Actors Guild]” because of his performance in 2007’s There Will Be Blood. He also bashed Wilson’s performance in the 2011 movie Midnight in Paris and named Lillard as an actor he does not “care for.”
“I’m not saying he’s giving a terrible performance,” Tarantino said of Dano 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.”
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In the days after Tarantino’s comments first surfaced on the podcast, stars like Ben Stiller, Simu Liu, Dano’s The Batman director Matt Reeves, Josh Gad and Alec Baldwin all publicly shared support for Dano.
“I just want to say I love Paul Dano. And if you don’t love Paul Dano, shh,” Baldwin, 67, said in a short video he shared on Instagram.