Paul Dano reveals why playing Steven Spielberg’s dad was the antidote to his psycho Riddler

US actor Paul Dano reveals the moment he had to console Steven Spielberg on the set of the awards-buzzy The Fabelmans.

Paul Dano and Michelle Williams in a scene from The Fabelmans.

Like countless other film lovers around the world, Steven Spielberg was responsible for one of Paul Dano’s “truly great movie theatre memories”.

It was 1993, the now-38-year-old star of The Batman and There Will Be Blood was in primary school and the master director’s record-breaking dinosaur epic was about to be released to almost unprecedented hype.

“The lines in my town in Connecticut when Jurassic Park was released were going to be so big down the block that my mum took me out of school early so I could go see a matinee and I could see the movie opening day,” Dano recalls over Zoom call from the home in Brooklyn he shares with actor-writer Zoe Kazan and their two young children.

“To get to miss school to go see a movie – that’s the only time that’s ever happened and it was for Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park.”

So, when Dano received a text message out of the blue from Spielberg himself requesting a meeting more than 25 years later, he was understandably a little rattled.

“It’s a surprising text to get, right?,” he says with a laugh.

“I was nervous to the point that my wife was like, ‘Why? Who are you meeting? Why are you so nervous?’ And I was like ‘it’s Steven Spielberg’.”

Paul Dano as Burt Fabelman in The Fabelmans, co-written, produced and directed by Steven Spielberg.

Even more startling for Dano was the fact that Spielberg wanted him to play the role of his father in his most personal film to date, The Fabelmans.

The coming-of-age drama is loosely based on Spielberg’s formative years – detailing his at times fraught family life and how he fell in love with making movies – and has already drawn rave reviews and is expected to feature prominently this awards season.

It’s already been nominated for five Golden Globe Awards and 11 Critics Choice awards, including Best Supporting Actor for Dano’s role as Burt Fabelman, closely modelled on Spielberg’s father Arnold.

Dano could see immediately in his first Zoom meeting during the Covid-19 pandemic just how much the movie meant to Spielberg, particularly given that Arnold has died less than a year before they first started discussing the part.

Dano says that the sometimes tough nature of the relationship between the two men meant that the prospect of making the semi-autobiographical film was scary, challenging and “at times a heavy cloak to bear”.

But, he adds, speaking with his director almost weekly while prepping for the film – not to mention having access to recordings and footage of Arnold from the vast Spielberg family archive – were a huge help in finding the essence of the man who was a well-regarded computer engineer for IBM as well as a loving, if often distant, father.

Semi-autobiographical The Fabelmans is Steven Spielberg’s most personal film to date. Picture: AFP

Dano, who professes to be fascinated by the American post-war era as depicted in the plays of Arthur Miller, also drew on the memory of his own WWII veteran grandfather and immersed himself in the “company man” ethos of the time by devouring actual engineering manuals from the time and studying the uniformity of clothes, haircuts and pursuit of the American Dream.

“The last scene of Burt’s in the film, we filmed on the one-year anniversary of Arnold’s passing on August 25,” says Dano.

“And it’s a day I won’t forget – it was a beautiful day of filming. It meant a lot that someone like Steven – especially considering that The Batman with me playing The Riddler was out in cinemas in the same year – would ask me to play this very decent man of integrity. It allowed me to work with a different part of myself because I’m in a marriage and I’m a parent. And so, this felt important for me in that regard.”

Indeed, there were moments during the shoot that were so emotional for Spielberg that Dano and his long-time friend Michelle Williams, who plays his wife Mitzi, felt compelled to go over and give him a hug.

“There were a few of those moments, honestly,” Dano says.

“It was a very special, intimate. We filmed most of it on soundstage and I feel like there was a real spell on that stage we worked on. That’s a hard one to put into words because it’s a special moment that I cherish. Even Steven’s sisters would be on set and call me ‘dad’.”

Paul Dano and Michelle Williams at a Special NYC Screening of The Fabelmans last month. Picture: Getty Images

Dano says that The Fabelmans arrived at just the right time in his life.

Not only was he a recent parent himself but he says that the part of Burt was “the most perfect antidote” to his intense, deeply disturbing portrayal of the psychotic, murderous conspiracy-theorist Edward Nashton – aka The Ridder – in Matt Reeves’ acclaimed The Batman.

“This was really well timed in that regard,” Dano agrees.

“I had just enough time to recover from that and then this gave me new life.”

But after the billion-dollar success of The Batman, Dano says it’s still very much a part of his life and he’ll be there if he gets the call for the inevitable sequel.

After he’d finished shooting The Fabelmans, he took a year off from acting to write a comic book called Riddler: Year One, based on the elaborate backstory he’d come up with in creating his character.

The first issue of six was released in October to critical and fan acclaim, with the second due to be released next week.

“I like to do a lot of work to build the character’s life and get me to page one of the script,” Dano days.

“So, I told Matt Reeves a few things about it and he was like, ‘that should be a comic’. Secretly I thought it could be too because I thought of it in this archetypal language like a comic, my backstory, and so I just decided to give it a go and I’ve put quite a bit of time into it and I love it. It’s been so fun. I love the medium and I’ve learned a lot and I’m really excited it’s getting out there now.”

The Fabelmans is in cinemas January 5.

Originally published as Paul Dano reveals why playing Steven Spielberg’s dad was the antidote to his psycho Riddler