Paul Dano first became familiar with future collaborator Paul Thomas Anderson because he was forbidden to watch “Boogie Nights.”
During a visit to Kim’s Video at Alamo Drafthouse in Downtown Manhattan, Dano reflected on his early encounters with Anderson’s work — years before being cast in his breakout role in “There Will Be Blood.”
“I remember in high school my dad saying, ‘You haven’t seen that movie “Boogie Nights,” have you?‘ And I was like, ‘No,’” Dano said in the exclusive video below. “And like of course the first thing you try to do when your parent says that is try to see it. I saw ‘Boogie Nights’ solely because my dad didn’t want me to.”
Dano’s trip to Kim’s is captured in Episode 2 of the web series “Kim’s Video Collection” which features actors and filmmakers exploring the legendary video collection. Dano shared memories of renting hard-to-find videos at Kim’s as a young actor; Kim’s was one of the first video stores to be organized by filmmaker.
“It sort of felt like you were joining either some cool kid group in that way of people who knew about movies in a way that you didn’t,” Dano said. “Even though it was sort of cult-y, in a way it felt like the big leagues.”
The writer/director/actor looked back on renting titles like “Toxic Avenger” when growing up. Yet Dano admitted his filmic tastes have changed over the years, especially since he can’t stomach horror movies anymore.
“I cannot watch [any] now. I get scared,” the “Prisoners” and “The Batman” actor said. “I don’t respond well to gore and violence, but as a little kid, I thought they were the coolest.”
Pointing to international titles, Dano also mused on how certain filmmakers like Rainer Werner Fassbinder were so prolific.
“I don’t know how he worked so fast. I don’t know how people make so many films,” Dano said. “I feel like it’s so hard just to write and make one.”
Dano’s visit to Kim’s embodied his own cinephile nostalgia, which is reflected in Dano’s personal physical media collection.
“It may be my most profound vice is the inability not to buy movies,” Dano said. “We live in New York, we don’t have the space for it. But I really love physical media and I believe that it has energy. You want your books and your movies in your home. You want those people there with you, sort to speak. I’ve always not only been somebody who likes to rent a movie, but I like having my favorite filmmakers in the house.”
Check out all of Dano’s picks in the below video.
