Paul Dano, cover boy

Paul Dano is on the May 2009 cover of Nylon Magazine. He's probably going to be promoting everything from Gigantic to Where the Wild Things Are (yes, he's it in). There's a sit down interview with Dano, during the Nylon photo shoot in which he speaks briefly about The Extra Man, a film he's currently shooting. I'm still smarting over the fact that Gigantic probably will not be opening in my country, so this interview is going to have to be enough to console me:





Via ONTD!

Exclusive sneak preview of 'Gigantic''

Plot synopsis: Brian Weathersby (Paul Dano) is a 28 year-old salesman at a high-end Swedish mattress company. Unfulfilled by his work he spends a good portion of his day pursuing his goal of someday adopting a baby from China. He gets swept up in a romance with the lovely but misguided Harriet Lolly (Zooey Deschanel) when she comes in to his store one day and falls asleep on one of the beds. Watch the clip below:





Gigantic opens on April 3, 2009 in limited release in New York City.

The Gigantic genius of Paul Dano

Gigantic looks like the kind of indie dramedy that I've grown tired of: syrupy, pretentious, too cute for its own good. But, I find its star, Paul Dano, irresistible enough to be convinced that he can do no wrong. Dano plays a mattress store employee hellbent on adopting a baby from China. Add Dano's quiet presence to Gigantic's relatively good reviews, and my excitement has gotten hard to contain.

Gigantic is one of four films Paul Dano stars in this year. The others are Explicit Ills, Taking Woodstock – directed by Ang Lee and also starring Paul Dano's The Girl Next Door co-star Emile Hirsch, and Where the Wild Things Are.



2009 might be the stepping stone from promising young actor to bonafide genius. Certainly his sullen teenager in Little Miss Sunshine and his quiet confidence opposite Daniel Day-Lewis in There Will be Blood will have a lot to do with that transition. Yet, 2009 seems like a promising year for him. I don't mean fangirls will chase him through the streets Rob Pattinson style, but perhaps there will be a level of credibility that puts him at the same level with say, Ryan Gosling.


Gigantic and Taking Woodstock stand out the most. For the first time, Paul Dano plays the romantic lead opposite Zooey Deschanel (equally irresistible) in Gigantic, and he works with Ang Lee in Taking Woodstock. The Academy's on and off romance with Ang Lee, and Paul Dano's appearances in two Oscar nominated films (There Will be Blood and Little Miss Sunshine) makes Taking Woodstock harder to ignore.



I could be wrong about all of this. Paul Dano's performance with Zooey Deschanel may be overshadowed by that other quirky, indie romance that also stars Deschanel with a supremely talented Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Taking Woodstock could somehow get Hulkified. I'll have to return to this post a year or more from now to see if I was right or wrong. You can watch Paul in the Gigantic trailer, so that you can, you know, get excited. Or not: