PAUL DANO
Date of Birth: June 19, 1984
Paul Dano began his career as a child actor on the New York stage with supporting roles in the Broadway revival of Inherit the Wind, opposite George C. Scott and Charles Durning; and the Madison Square Garden staging of A Christmas Carol, directed by Mike Ockrent, with Ben Vereen and Terrence Mann.
Since then, he starred off-Broadway in the Ethan Hawke-directed production of The New Group's Things We Want, with Peter Dinklage, Josh Hamilton, and Zoe Kazan.
Dano received a BAFTA Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in a dual role opposite Academy Award winner Daniel Day-Lewis in Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will Be Blood. The film marked his second consecutive starring role in a Best Picture Golden Globe and Academy Award nominee, following his performance in Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris' Little Miss Sunshine, in which he starred with Abigail Breslin, Steve Carell and Academy Award winner Alan Arkin. With his fellow actors from the latter feature, Mr. Dano shared the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture as well as the Critics' Choice Award for Best Acting Ensemble; additionally, he won the Critics' Choice Award for Best Young Actor for his performance in the film.
His first lead role in Michael Cuesta's L.I.E. opposite Brian Cox, earned him an Independent Spirit Award for Best Debut Performance as well as the Best Actor Award at the Stockholm Film Festival and (in a tie) the Grand Jury Award for Outstanding Actor in a Feature Film at L.A.'s Outfest.
His other films include Rebecca Miller's The Ballad of Jack and Rose, also with Day-Lewis; Richard Linklater's Fast Food Nation; and Matt Aselton's Gigantic, which Dano executive-produced and starred in alongside Zooey Deschanel and John Goodman. More recently he appeared in Knight and Day, which starred Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz and in Cowboys & Aliens with Harrison Ford and Daniel Craig.