Paul Franklin Danonote (born June 19, 1984 in New York City, New York) is an American actor, director, and producer.
He has appeared in films such as L.I.E., Little Miss Sunshine, There Will Be Blood, Gigantic, Meek's Cutoff, Cowboys & Aliens, Looper, Being Flynn, Ruby Sparks, Prisoners, 12 Years a Slave, and The Batman (2022). He also wrote the The Batman tie-in comic Riddler: Year One.
His debut as a director, Wildlife, was released in early 2018. Besides directing, he also co-wrote the script with Zoe Kazan, his long-term girlfriend and a recurring collaborator in earlier movies of his. They have two children.
He appeared in:
- The Newcomers (2000) as Joel
- L.I.E (2001) as Howie Blitzer
- The Sopranos (two episodes, one in 2002 and one in 2004) as Patrick Whalen
- The Emperor's Club (2002) as Martin Blythe
- The Girl Next Door (2004) as Klitz
- Little Miss Sunshine (2006) as Dwayne Hoover
- There Will Be Blood (2007) as Paul and Eli Sunday
- Gigantic (2008) as Brian Weathersby
- Where the Wild Things Are (2009) as Alexander
- Knight and Day (2010) as Simon Feck
- Meek's Cutoff (2011) as Thomas Gately
- Cowboys & Aliens (2011) as Percy Dolarhyde
- Looper (2012) as Seth
- Ruby Sparks (2012) as Calvin Weir-Fields
- Prisoners (2013) as Alex Jones
- 12 Years a Slave (2013) as John Tibeats
- Love & Mercy (2014) as Brian Wilson (young)
- Youth (2015) as Jimmy Tree
- War and Peace (2016) as Pierre Bezukhov
- Swiss Army Man (2016) as Hank Thompson
- Okja (2017) as Jay
- Escape at Dannemora (2018)
- The Batman (2022) as Edward Nashton / The Riddler
- Pantheon (2022) as Caspian Keyes
- The Fabelmans (2022) as Burt Fabelman
- Dumb Money (2023) as Keith Gill
- Mr. and Mrs. Smith (2024) as "Hot Neighbor"
- Spaceman (2024) as Hanuš
- The Studio (2025) as himself
Tropes:
- Butt-Monkey: He's not killed off enough to be a Chronically Killed Actor, but his characters tend to take a lot of punishment, to the point where a podcast called "Is Paul Dano OK?
" was created to cover his career and lampoon all the abuse he's taken. Needless to say, fans love making jokes about his track record of being beaten up. For example, he's been:- Not beaten up in Little Miss Sunshine, but got a lifelong dream of his crushed and had a nervous breakdown.
- Hit in the crotch with a fencing sabre in The Girl Next Door.
- Repeatedly hit in the crotch and slammed into a metal bar in Cowboys & Aliens.
- Whipped in 12 Years a Slave
- Slapped around, dragged in mud and beaten to death with a bowling pin in There Will Be Blood.
- Kidnapped and brutally tortured in Prisoners.
- Slowly dismembered and then kept alive in captivity for decades in Looper.
- Beaten by two different people in Gigantic.
- Gets hit by a car and dies in The Good Heart.
- Suffering from Schizophrenia, Abusive Parents, and Creative Differences in Love & Mercy.
- Held as a prisoner under horrible circumstances in the 2016 BBC adaptation of War and Peace.
- Attacked by a bear in Swiss Army Man.
- Gets shot twice In the Back in Escape at Dannemora.
- Ironically, this is mostly averted in The Batman, where he's taken into custody without a fight and protected behind glass during his confrontation with Batman, who instead goes on to fight his cult of copycats as they are about to commit a terrorist attack. The most he gets is his head slammed into a counter by a cop during his arrest. Ironic because he's playing the Riddler, who's usually the kind of Smug Snake who gets at least one cathartic punch from Batman over the course of the story.
- Raised in a verbally and emotionally abusive household as an attempt to be raised identically as the man he's cloned from to recreate that genius, right down to being constantly monitored and having a girl hired to be his love interest, having his existing paranoia validated and life destroyed by learning all of the above, and then immediately thrown into a war between uploaded human minds now capable of hijacking nearly anything with online capabilities as the only person who can fix a problem that forces them to burn themselves out when he would really much rather not to in Pantheon.
- Creator Couple: He and his girlfriend Zoe Kazan have collaborated on films several times.
- Inelegant Blubbering: His characters tend to do this.
- Large Ham: Has a tendency to scream at least once in every movie he's in.
- Older Than They Look: He still looks like a teenager despite already pushing 40.
- Production Posse: With Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris.
- Real-Life Relative: He co-starred with his partner Zoe Kazan in Ruby Sparks.
- Screams Like a Little Girl: Many jokes have been made of his somewhat feminine screaming that he does in almost every movie.
- Star-Making Role: Dwayne Hoover in Little Miss Sunshine marked the start of his rise to fame.
- Typecasting: He is often cast as whiny, wimpy, or Butt-Monkey characters.