Paul Dano

“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.”

“I tore my ACL playing basketball.”

“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.”

“I'd love to do a really broad comedy at some point.”

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

“As people, no matter what we are doing, your whole body is living and breathing.”

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

“Robert De Niro's sort of like a surfer: he doesn't really force anything. So if he catches the wave, or something spills out - to watch a guy be a force at what he does. He has a good worth ethic.”

“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.”

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

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

“A lot of people think I must be weird because of the films I've done. I get that.”

“I always ask for more takes. I like doing takes, so I'll do as many as I can.”

“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.”

“In tragedy, it's hard to find a good resolution; it's not black and white: it's a big fog of gray.”

“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 like movies a lot, and I feel really excited when I see a movie that moves me the right way.”

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

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