‘There Will Be Blood’: Paul Dano Still Has the Bruises

Paul Dano’s preacher character in There Will Be Blood spends much of his time shrieking and flailing about. Think of the intensity of the scream he gave as the son in Little Miss Sunshine but amplified by twenty and sustained for nearly three hours. In the new film, Dano has a few fights with Daniel Day-Lewis, and they are bitch-slapping, grunting, physical affairs. But were they real? “Paul Dano’s got the bruises to prove it,� director Paul Thomas Anderson said Wednesday following a screening at the 92nd Street Y. “But it makes you say, ‘Let’s everybody try to get this right the first time.’� The shooting schedule helped, too, Anderson explained. A Day-Lewis victory was followed immediately by a Dano one, “so Paul could get his retribution right away.� —Aileen Gallagher