Paul Dano

Paul Dano plays David Sweat in Escape at Dannemora. His watchful, concentrated performance gives the prison drama much of its practical tension: Sweat seems to be assessing what he can use and what stands in his way. He stars alongside Patricia Arquette and Benicio del Toro, under Ben Stiller's direction.

Dano's film work includes Little Miss Sunshine, There Will Be Blood, Prisoners, Love & Mercy and Okja. There Will Be Blood gives him the role of preacher Eli Sunday opposite Daniel Day-Lewis. In 2018 he made his feature directing debut with Wildlife, moving behind the camera for a family drama.

On television, he plays Pierre Bezukhov in the BBC adaptation of War and Peace. He also appears as Patrick Whalen in The Sopranos, an earlier supporting credit quite different in scale from his later leading television roles.

In Dumb Money (2023), Dano plays Keith Gill, the investor whose online posts helped draw attention to GameStop. The red headband and long hair in the portrait on this page belong to that role, rather than his appearance as Sweat in Dannemora.