Top 80 Paul Dano Quotes

I think it is important to make sure that I have my real life as well, because Hollywood can certainly seem like an alternate reality sometimes.

You try to get to know your character as best as you can before you start filming – what’s written and not written.

At the heart of drama is conflict.

I go down to the dive bar around the corner when I go out. I don’t go to the showbiz parties.

I do think the first time you read a script, that gut response is very important, and that probably plants a seed that continues to blossom throughout the whole experience.

I sort of grew up doing theater. And that’s how I got into film, actually.

As an actor, the toughest thing is being subject to circumstance. Meaning: What scripts are out there that are available?

Theater is hard.

There are maybe 100 actors I look up to, but my first two favourite actors were Dustin Hoffman and Jack Nicholson.

One of my favorite things I read was John Steinbeck’s journals while he was writing ‘East of Eden,’ which was so cool.

I’m a sucker for period pieces. There is always great opportunity for research and to delude yourself into feeling like you are in a different time and place.

One of my favorite films is ‘Dumb and Dumber.’ I’d love to do some really silly comedy someday.

Homeless people really upset me when I was little. A lot of kids have this reaction, but I would get really worried or sad or concerned or cry.

When you repeat yourself so many times, even if you’re speaking the truth, the repetition starts to feel false. Sometimes, you just feel like the words you’re speaking, even if they once had meaning, have lost it. And that makes you feel kind of silly.

In life, you have to keep certain parts of yourself in check because you want to be a decent human being. But one of the guilty pleasures of acting is that sometimes you get to let a little something out that you don’t in life because it’s not right.

To be running away from explosions with Harrison Ford, you know, that’s pretty great.

I think you sometimes have to go hit rock bottom before you can grow and rebuild as a person.

It’s a lot of fun to be a part of films that you don’t exactly know how they’re going to turn out.

Nobody is a perfect actor.

There’s a lot of people that I would love to work with. There’s a lot of different kinds of parts I wanna play. As your career progresses, you hope that you get some more opportunity or some more choice.

I love cereal. I eat several bowls a day, mostly a few late at night.

I’m very low-maintenance.

I don’t know that praise is always a good thing.

The world of the homeless is a tough and interesting world.

I’m a private person, but I don’t feel afraid to walk out of my door or anything. I get recognised occasionally, but not overwhelmingly so.

Spring and fall in New York are the best seasons here to get out and about. I like the little park in Dumbo between the Manhattan and Brooklyn bridge. I like Prospect Park.

Sometimes we fall in love with the idea of a person and have trouble seeing the real thing.

Films can be entertaining without shying away from exploring something. They can be magical and have fantasy, but also can have enough reality that you can be really emotionally invested.

People think memorizing lines is hard, when that’s the last thing you worry about. You get that done, and then you’ve got to worry about the internal stuff, which is the challenging part.

I know I’d like to direct a film at some point, and maybe I’ll write it.

Everything you do, every experience that you have, enlightens you a little bit or worsens you.

I went to private school in Manhattan, and at a young age, they made us do public speaking. For some reason, I was good at standing in front of the class and speaking.

I know I am always pumped, as an audience member, to go and see a Western.

I’m not a person who needs to chit-chat between takes by any means.

I am baffled by good writing.

I want to do some bigger films, so long as there’s some sort of exciting creative element or a good filmmaker behind them.

I like listening to my playlist on the iPod. I don’t want radio with commercials.

My first paying job might have been doing a play, actually. My mom paid me to dress up as a flounder at my sister’s ‘Little Mermaid’ – themed birthday party when I was little.

I think that one of the strangest things about being an actor is, it’s almost freelance work.

I’d love to do a really broad comedy at some point.

I think ‘American Pie’ is great.

The whole being-in-a-room interview thing, at a junket or a film festival, is very inhuman. You meet the person, have five or 10 minutes to talk, and it’s not like a conversation.

As an actor, I always feel you basically have to be able to delude yourself.

The way Hollywood works, you’re never sure if their first thought is to make a great film and honor the material or just another business property.

I think that the Western went away for a while because part of its function was that it used to be America’s action film.

Sometimes I think your intellect can get in your way as an actor or an artist. When you come from a world of improv and comedy, you’re able to let it flicker and fall out.

I know an actor who would play one type of part but could never get cast as tough. Once he got cast as tough, as a cop, he only got offered cop roles. It’s a funny business in that regard. It’s all about perception.

The hardest thing about working with your partner is that the work starts to become first.

Some projects go as you hope or imagine, and some change or reveal themselves in a different way; it depends.

I guess sometimes fear is a good thing. It’s a really good motivator.

I remember going to the theatre when I was little and the lights going down and just getting really scared about what was going to happen up there.

Your director is your main support – actors don’t generally give each other advice on set, not in my experience.

One thing you notice is, there’s a lot of people with raw talent, and then there’s people who take that talent and work hard.

Being actors is a strange job.

The only constant I can find is hard work.

I approach every role from scratch.

I don’t want my learning curve to be stunted by just all of a sudden doing work all the time and not being careful about the work that I’m doing.

‘Looper’ was a wonderful script. Rian Johnson is the real deal and a really talented filmmaker.

When I’m not excited, it makes acting very hard for me.

I love Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath and Guns N’ Roses and AC/DC.

I like a restaurant called Bruci, and there’s some really nice people who work there and good food. They change their menu a lot, so maybe that’s what keeps me coming back. I never know what I’m going to get.

I like the idea of finding parts that I know I can do but I don’t totally understand them right away.

I can obviously relate to a character who is an artist, because the creative process is a big part of my life.

In ‘There Will Be Blood,’ my character was someone who was an actor himself almost. He had a rehearsed quality about him. He was a performance artist in a way.

When my girlfriend’s away, I cook a big vat of meaty pasta and sauce and eat that for about a week. Then I eat out the rest of the time. When she’s home, we eat at home probably twice a week. I chop, she cooks.

I don’t have any tattoos.

Have I seen any plays that I’ve been in? Uh, you know, might be a little weird.

I’ve definitely been in ruts, and I think having some kind of perseverance is important.

I used to write a lot of songs. I was an English major in college. I was a deluded poet for a year. Totally deluded.

I started acting pretty young, so I haven’t had too many odd jobs. But I used to sell candy out of my locker in middle school.

The idea of writer’s block or not having inspiration is totally terrifying to me.

I feel like, once you’re doing a job, you shouldn’t talk about it.

I love filming in New York. I love New York movies, too. I just like it when people can take New York and make it their own, because there are so many different New Yorks.

I would not take a girl to a club on a Thursday. I would not take her to a really noisy, swanky restaurant.

Let’s say honorary favorite New Yorker is John Lennon, and favorite real New Yorker is Biggie, because he’s the best.

I don’t like to spend a lot of money on haircuts: I’ll sometimes grow my hair and get an acting job and get them to cut it for free. I think for a lady, though, it’s okay to spend a lot on a haircut.

There’s that thing that if you want to have any kind of lasting love, I think you have to love the whole person and not just the parts of them that you choose.

I think the idea is to try and understand everything about the characters and where the character is coming from, from their point of view, why they say what they do. And not, ‘Oh, but I would never say that. Why does the character say that?’ But then making it as personal as possible.

I’ve definitely had mentors, whether parents or friends or actors who I like.

I’m not a big shopper. I’m a pretty simple dresser, and that’s not my pleasure go-to thing, looking for clothes.