Paul Dano Talks about “Being Flynn”

Paul Dano is only 27 but he already has a number of incredible roles and films behind him.  You’ve seen him give great performances in “There Will Be Blood,”  “Little Miss Sunshine” and “L.I.E.”  and this week he stopped by the Sirius XM studios to talk with Ron Bennington about his new film, which he co-stars in with Robert De Niro, “Being Flynn.”  Excerpts from the interview appear below.

Ron Bennington: I just caught the film yesterday. And I had read the book years ago and never once did I think, oh this would make a movie.

Paul Dano: Yeah, it’s a stunning memoir. But it’s nonlinear and it’s rather poetic and it’s quite sprawling.

Ron Bennington: Yeah and very little dialogue runs through it.

Paul Dano: You’re right. Yeah, absolutely. I am not sure why Paul Weitz took on the challenge of trying to somehow make that into a screenplay. I’m glad he did, but I agree with you. It does not scream cinema.

Ron Bennington: Well the coolest thing about the film, and you play Nick Flynn and De Niro plays your father in this film, but the greatest thing about it is I think the fact that we’re bringing up homelessness as something that could happen at any second. Because most of us, if we didn’t have family or friends at one point of our life… You know when people have to go home for a year or so or move in with their brother or whatever. It happens to just about everybody I’ve ever known and yet if you don’t have that one thing, boom, you’re out there.

Paul Dano: Yeah, I did some volunteer work at a shelter here in New York in the shelter and also going out in a truck and going to Tompkins Square Park for example and setting up a little table. It was winter so we could give out food, hats, scarves, gloves, socks. And the most astonishing thing for me was how many people I met who were actually normal and ordinary people growing up in New York. I think there are people with mental illness. There are addicts and this kind of thing, but I met people who were 3 weeks homeless. A totally new thing and they were at the shelter and they looked like normally dressed people. They were looking for a job during the day. That sort of blew me away. I met an athlete who blew out a knee or shoulder or something, was not really well equipped for the work force and was now homeless after having a promising career that fell apart. So just being from New York and at a certain point in your life, not that you get used to seeing the homeless, but it becomes a part of my everyday routine in the subway. This was very eye opening and it was important for us to treat it on film not in a manipulative way. Not trying to manipulate the audience to feel something or take advantage of these people. But Nick Flynn the writer, we got people from shelters and from health projects to come in and be part of the film and we tried to do our best in respect to that.

Ron Bennington: So a lot of the people that are playing extras here?

Paul Dano: And people who had lines too actually.

Ron Bennington: Oh really?

Paul Dano: From the shelter, there’s a guy who I clean in the shower. I shampoo lice off of him. He was from a health project. And there’s a guy who I have to help him get a new pair of pants and he was from a shelter. It was interesting.

Ron Bennington: And Nick has kind of went through this. He kind of enjoyed that work because he liked the edginess of it, that was a way of being. And it almost reminds you a little bit of the writing in Fight Club where it’s like let’s find these things to be as raw emotion as we can.

Paul Dano: Right. That’s really good. I think a part of him that was also looking for just one positive thing that he could do with himself because he was in a tough spot. And at least being a guy who’s going against the grain. He doesn’t want to go get a job at the Gap. He’d rather be at the homeless shelter. And then for it to be, not a contact sport, but there’s a rush to working in this raw element and with people who are different and there’s potential danger and there’s also positive moments where you help somebody. He definitely had an interesting relationship with the shelter like you’re saying.

Ron Bennington: De Niro in this film, and I think the cool thing about the scenes between you and De Niro is that you’re kind of the anchor and he’s the balloon. You kind of anchor him into it. But he’s playing the kind of De Niro part that I think we want to see him play. If you’re a fan of his, he goes places in this that you’ve never seen him do before.

Paul Dano: Yeah. You get a script in the mail. It says De Niro is attached to this part. As a young actor, I say well I’m excited to read this. And then to see that we have so many great scenes together and will work together in such a close capacity, that’s a great thing. But then also to see that it’s such a challenging great part. And to be on set and see Bob bring something amazing to this part that would constantly surprise me while we were at work. And I feel like I got to step in the ring with Robert De Niro and I totally relished that experience. It was great and he’s actually quite a sweet and warm guy which I wasn’t totally expecting. He was very kind to me. But boy, he brought it in this one and I know it’d be a thrill for me to see just as a movie fan, a Robert De Niro fan. I think that people will like that.

Ron Bennington: Yeah, it definitely is a thing where you’re like well here’s De Niro, he’s going in a different direction then we’re used to seeing because it’s a physical role the way than he would have played when he was younger. And the thing that is amazing to watch is what living outside does to you. How physically fast it starts to take it’s toll. And he’s transforming during these scenes. And isn’t it odd that you just think that just a roof and a couple walls is all you really need in the universe. But outside of that, the body just starts to fall apart and emotionally you start to fall apart.

Paul Dano: Yeah, I think so. Especially after spending time with some real people who spent some time out there. And I think we can all relate. And I’m not saying I can relate to some of these homeless by saying this, but my girlfriend is away right now and weird things start happening when I’m alone in my apartment. You know you get weird with yourself. You wind up in a room, you don’t know how you got there. You’re talking to yourself. And then just imagine being out on the street and you’re alone. That’s the other thing about being homeless. Sometimes there’s families that are homeless, but a lot of these people are alone. And I think that’s a big part of it too in sort of the mental deterioration that happens.

Ron Bennington: And that makes it all the tougher to get back up off the ground. Makes it tougher to push back off. There’s some terrific other actors in this film. Some of the people playing small parts. But I did not know this, is that Nick Flynn’s real life wife is in the film. And I did not know that those two were married until I saw this.

Paul Dano: Yeah. Lili Taylor who’s a wonderful actress and Nick Flynn. They happen to live a few blocks from me as well, so when I got the part, I did not know that and I went to my local bookstore to buy a copy of the memoir and I brought it to the counter and the guy said “Oh no, we have a special copy for you” and he gave me a copy of the book that Nick had written a note in. And I’d just gotten off the phone finding out that I had gotten the part. And I said how did this guy know that I was going to come to this bookstore and buy his book? I thought it was a little creepy, truthfully. I didn’t know what was going on. And then I found out that he lives like 4 blocks from me and knew that I went to that bookstore frequently and just took a gamble. So that was cool. So I spent some time with Nick and Lili, she’s great.

Ron Bennington: Your career, for being such a young guy, is going all over the place and is this something that you’ve planned this career or do these things just kind of happen to you? You’ve been in some fantastic movies.

Paul Dano: Yeah, well I certainly can’t say that I’ve planned anything. I’ve certainly hoped for things and been conscientious about what I try to do or just really my tastes. What I like to do. So I feel good. It’s funny, some people, you get impressions of people, I still feel like I’m young, so it’s just the tip of, the start of my career even though I’ve done some stuff now. But I would say most of it is as well thought out as it could be. But at the end of the day, you know I read this script and I had a gut impression, instinct or whatever that made my blood sort of move. And I felt something and my brain started ticking. And I guess that’s what I look for. Just that feeling.

Ron Bennington: And also you never know how the movie’s going to… I think There Will Be Blood has been around long enough now that we know that this film is gonna be around forever. That people are actually talking about that film at a higher standard now even then when it came out. And you don’t get that all the time, I mean there’s some films that win an Oscar and 3 years later they feel dated. But in this case, people still write about it and bring it up and are still trying to find a handle on it.

Paul Dano: Yeah, I feel very lucky to have been there on that one. It’s for me, it’ll be hard to beat that experience. I got to work with one of my favorite filmmakers and one of my favorite actors and so regardless of how the film turned out, I was already as excited and proud as I could have been just to have that experience for my life. And that the film was a good film and that it had an impact on people. And it’s one of the few films that I’ve been in that I think it will be around for a bit. I think it’s a good one.

Ron Bennington: You broke in at a really young age with what? L.I.E?

Paul Dano: L.I.E. was the first film that I did. I was doing some theater here in New York before that. And then L.I.E. came around. I was not, it was like basketball to me, acting at that point. I was not overly ambitious. It was something that I liked and that I felt like I was pretty good at. It was like a sport. It was fun and then this L.I.E. film happened.

Ron Bennington: Instant buzz though.

Paul Dano: It went to Sundance and did well. It got out there in a way and it got a pretty decent response and it was really eye opening. I didn’t know much about independent film before that and I didn’t think that making movies was this kind of huge big thing that, this experience was very intimate and these people really cared about what they were doing. And I think they do on all sizes of films. But when I’m watching Terminator 2 in elementary or middle school that looks totally different than what this L.I.E. experience was and I just didn’t know about that world. And so it was really an important experience for me.

Ron Bennington: But you manage to stay with the personal films. And I guess that’s why I asked if you planned it or you’re just saying one at a time, you gut check it.

Paul Dano: No. I think I would like to. I need to, at some point, kick some ass. I would like to do something. What I think about truthfully is if I’m in a hotel room for 3 months, I need the words that I’m going home and reading every night for the next day to inspire me otherwise I think my job becomes really hard. I feel like I’m probably not going to be a great actor if I don’t think the material is good or if it’s not feeding me something. So that’s what it really boils down to and it adds up to what it’s added up to.

Ron Bennington: The film is Being Flynn and it opens in New York and L.A. this weekend. And If you can get out for that try to do it right away too because the cool thing about it is and I mentioned this right away, is you see De Niro doing the kind of roles that we love to see De Niro do. We’re seeing De Niro challenging himself in this one. And quite honestly, I think it keeps you challenged as an audience member because you’ll start and think well am I living month to month? 

Paul Dano: Yeah. Yeah.

Ron Bennington: It’s so great to meet you man.

Paul Dano: Nice to meet you. Thanks for having me.

=================================

This interview can be heard in its entirety exclusively on SiriusXM satellite radio.  Not yet a subscriber?  Click here for a free trial subscription.