Who is Paul Dano’s wife? All about actor trending online following Quentin Tarantino diss

Quentin Tarantino recently criticized Paul Dano's performance in There Will Be Blood, calling him a "weak, uninteresting guy."

Tarantino appeared in the most recent episode of the Bret Easton Ellis podcast, where he opened up about some of his favorite films, ranking There Will Be Blood at number 5.

He said that Paul Thomas Anderson's 2007 movie would "stand a better chance to be in number 1 or number 2" if "it didn't have a big giant flaw in it, and the flaw is Paul Dano."

"It’s supposed to be a two-hander, but Dano is weak sauce, man... He’s just such a weak, weak, uninteresting guy," said Tarantino.

Quentin Tarantino says 'There Will Be Blood' would've had a chance to be his greatest film of the 21st century if it didn't have Paul Dano in it

"it’s supposed to be a two-hander, but ... [Dano] is weak sauce, man ... He’s just such a weak, weak, uninteresting guy. The weakest… pic.twitter.com/NSjqVV23hW

— Culture Crave 🍿 (@CultureCrave) December 2, 2025

Born on June 19, 1984, Dano has been in a relationship with actress Zoe Kazan, the daughter of screenwriters Nicholas Kazan and Robin Swicord, since 2007. The couple first met at the rehearsal of the play Things We Want.

Speaking about their first kiss on stage, Kazan, in a 2012 interview with W Magazine, said:

"Kissing in a movie or a play doesn't feel real – there's a remove. Even when Paul and I met five years ago, we were doing a play together and falling in love and we kissed on stage before we had ever kissed in real life. When we did kiss in real life, it felt totally different."

Although the couple are not married, they share two children. They welcomed their first baby, a daughter, in 2018. Three years later, the couple welcomed their second child.

Paul Dano and Zoe Kazan at the WGAE and SAG-AFTRA strike. pic.twitter.com/nDaxs7yBGT

— best of paul dano (@bestofpauld) July 15, 2023

In a 2022 interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Dano revealed that he lived with his family in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn, and confirmed that he never legally married Kazan, but refers to her as his wife.

"I'm so tired and I'm so in love. It's so extreme. Your heart has gone supernova in one sense. And then we landed from London last week and she cried for like 24 straight hours and you kind of just want to talk through a wall," Dano said on The Tonight Show in 2018, referring to the birth of his first child.

Speaking about maintaining life during the Covid-19 pandemic with his wife and children, Dano said:

"The first part of the pandemic was one of the only times where work didn’t seem to be a part of my life. That period of time was about my family and maintaining sanity. I would take a few hours in the morning to myself, Zoe in the afternoon. We shared all meal times, but we each needed a point of the day where we weren’t playing 2-year-old games."

"I don't care for him": Quentin Tarantino reflects on Paul Dano as an actor

Furthermore, in the aforementioned podcast, Bret Easton Ellis asked Quentin Tarantino if he ever liked Dano's performance in any other project.

"I don't care for him. I don't care for him, I don't care for Owen Wilson, and I don't care for Matthew Lillard," Tarantino responded.

When Tarantino made the "weak sauce" comment about Dano, Ellis attempted to defend him, saying, "Daniel Day-Lewis also makes it impossible to make it a two-hander because there are aspects of that performance that are so gargantuan."

Tarantino responded:

"So you put him with the weakest male actor in SAG? The limpest d**k in the world?"

The full conversation between Quentin Tarantino and Bret Easton Ellis is available on Apple Podcasts.