Cowboys and indie films

As the 'skinny white kid with glasses', Paul Dano was destined to play dramatic roles. Little Miss
Sunshine turned him into an indie darling, but he's just as happy working with cowboys, aliens
and A-list movie stars, he tells TARA BRADY

IN 1845, professional fur tracker and accomplished blowhard Stephen Meek led a train of emigrants off the primary Oregon Trail and down an ineffectual shortcut. Meek Cutoff, a meandering and historic covered wagon road, still bears the guide’s name, as do several pioneering follies that came after.

M eek's Cutoff, director Kelly Reichardt's mesmerising new film based on the ill-starred venture, pitches the eponymous guide (now channelled by actor Bruce Greenwood) as a kind of darkly comic Big Lebowskiprecursor.

Long before the unfortunate train spots a Cayuse Indian on the horizon, the young couples and families in his charge know that Meek has marched them into harm’s way. But filthy, dehydrated and weary from finding new ways to ask “are we there yet?” the frontier people, variously essayed by such modish stars as Michelle Williams, Paul Dano and Zoe Kazan, have little option but to keep on trekking.

“The entire shoot was basically six weeks of manual labour in Oregon,” recalls Paul Dano. “Kelly is all about the rugged experience. It didn’t require much acting. The elements did a lot of the work for you. It was the most treacherous, crazy shoot I’ve ever been on. Oxen weren’t cooperating and were sh**ting everywhere. People got hypothermia. I never knew dust could be so bad. It was in your mouth all day.

“But that’s what I signed up for and that’s what I wanted. Or at least I thought I did. It all looks beautiful on film so I guess it was worth inhaling dirt.”

At 26, Dano is a precocious veteran of stage and screen. A talented child actor, by 11 he had made the leap from community theatre projects in hometown Wilton, Connecticut to Broadway, where he played alongside George C Scott in a revival of Inherit the Wind.

“I got into theatre when I was young like it was a sport,” recalls Dano. “I liked basketball and I liked theatre. And because I’m white and skinny and I wear glasses, I had to settle for drama.

“When I think of that production I always wish that I had seen all of George C Scott’s work and that I could get to do it over.

“I remember little things like card games with the cast. I remember he was very sweet to me. He was not well for a lot of the run. But he was a beast on stage. That voice. That gravity. But I’d love to remember something about how he worked.”

An extravagantly gifted performer, Dano set out his stall as a heavyweight early on and has rarely shied away from challenging roles.

In L.I.E., made when he was 15, Dano played a sexually confused tearaway who befriended a paedophile. Due to the sensitivity of the material a guardian was required on set at all times. Dano's mother Gladys even appears in a non-speaking role to facilitate the enterprise.

“I don’t think I realised how extraordinarily supportive my parents were at the time,” he says. “I remember reading it and I wasn’t put off by it. There was never a doubt in my mind whether I would do it or not. And I’m still glad I did. I think it’s a good film and it opened me up to a whole world of independent cinema to love that I was largely unaware of at the time.”

He's apologetic about his "artsy fartsy tastes" and love of such high-fallutin' filmmakers as Melville, Bresson and Ozu, but independent cinema has always seemed to love Dano back. Dwayne, his iconic sullen teen in Little Miss Sunshine, helped turn that movie into a sleeper sensation, launched a 1,000 jaded slogans on T-shirts and catapulted Dano into the limelight.

“That was definitely the movie when people started coming up to me on the street,” he says. “It took a little getting used to. It’s a strange occurrence when somebody just walks up and accosts you.

“It was unexpected. It was an independent movie. We didn’t know it would take off when we made it. We weren’t sure anyone would see it.”

The star of Rebecca Miller's The Ballad of Jack and Roseand Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini's The Extra Manremains philosophical about the increasing capriciousness of the indie scene, the troubled sector where he mostly plies his trade.

"It's pretty absurd and upsetting sometimes," he sighs. "The trick is to know what you're getting into. Meek's Cutoffis a wonderful film but it's not one of those indie films that's trying to be the next big breakout hit. It's important not to chase ghosts as an actor. You need to work out in your head what kind of film are we making and get it made. That's the barometer of success."

He laughs at the notion that he and Zoe Kazan, his Meek's Cutoffco-star and girlfriend of three years, constitute indie's new golden couple but his career trajectory suggests otherwise. A producer on the romantic comedy Giganticand a guitarist with the band Mook, even off-screen, Dano is no slouch.

"I'm not ambitious about numbers or visibility," he says, "but I do like keeping busy. And I've always cared about what I do whether it was school or basketball or theatre." In this spirit he doesn't really distinguish between his western duds for Meek's Cutoffand those required for the forthcoming summer spectacular Cowboys & Aliens.

"I love Anthony Mann and John Ford but I never imagined I'd be a western guy," says Dano. "I mean There Will Be Bloodisn't a proper western and my next film has aliens . . . but still."

Never mind the spurs. I wonder if life isn’t a whole lot easier starring alongside Harrison Ford and special effects than slumming it for the latest sensation? “Once the cameras roll, it’s exactly the same job,” he promises.

"You're there to serve a character and focus. The schedule has more downtime on Hollywood pictures. The hotel rooms are nice but on a personal level it's still work. I loved doing Cowboys & Aliens. The director Jon Favreau is a talented guy. And I was pretty pumped to work alongside Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford and Sam Rockwell every day."

Maybe. But it can't have been as much graft as that final delirious showdown with Daniel Day Lewis in There Will Be Blood, surely?

“Yeah, but that’s mostly because Daniel gives his all more than any other actor I’ve ever worked with,” says Dano. “You watch him and you learn about hard work and discipline. I remember doing that scene in the most surreal dreamlike way. I remember sweating and sweating. I remember getting hit by a bowling ball. Daniel is a total badass onscreen, in real life and on the bowling lanes.”

Meek's Cutoffopens on Friday; Cowboys & Aliensopens on July 29th

Dano's best moments

Little Miss Sunshine (2006)

Miffed teenager Dwayne (Dano) has a dream. He wants to be a test pilot. He has even undertaken a vow of silence to keep his eyes on the prize. Then, on a disastrous road trip with his quirky family, his uncle points out that Dwayne can’t fly if he’s colour blind. The floodgates open. “No, you’re not my family, okay? I don’t want to be your family! I hate you f**ing people! I hate you. Divorce? Bankrupt? Suicide? You’re f**king losers! You are losers!”

And so forth.

There Will Be Blood (2007)

Pious preacher Eli (Dano) and oil baron Daniel (Daniel Day Lewis) have been fussin’ and feudin’ over land for decades when they meet for one last showdown in a bowling alley. The moustache-twirling capitalist demands that the evangelist denounces God in return for property. “I am a false prophet; God is a superstition,” cries Dano. His rival reveals the land is worthless with demented aplomb: “I drink your milkshake”.

Meek’s Cutoff (2011)

The families making slow progress across the Cascade Mountains in Kelly Reichardt’s western are not doing well. Thirsty and lost, they soon turn on their Native American prisoner. “He was signalling someone,” exclaims Dano’s paranoid pioneer. “It has to mean something.”