Paul Dano + Nutella
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Good morning: In today's edition of The Industry, we look at:
Paul Dano and Adam Sandler bond, Dick Wolf's true crime, Mckenna Grace's frozen empire, and some special brownies.
Let’s go!
PAUL DANO: THE WISEST SPIDER IN THE UNIVERSE
Paul Dano plays a spider.
In the new Netflix film Spaceman, Paul Dano voices an intergalactic arachnid who enters Adam Sandler’s spaceship.
While there’s some inherent goofiness, like Dano’s spider referring to Nutella as a means of ending human suffering, the real focus of the film is Sandler’s loneliness.
Through a series of thought experiments, Dano leads Sandler through a memory pathway toward self-enlightenment.
Dano explained:
"I sort of loved that he was like this death doula, a spirit guide, Zen-like sort of guy who's lived through all this time and all these galaxies. I like that the film was about the mystery in ourselves, and I feel very much that science fiction allows for that thing: you're out here in space, but really you're alone on the inside."
Dano is fine-tuned for roles where he extols wisdom.
Recently, he played the GameStop stock YouTube guru “Roaring Kitty” in Dumb Money (2023), where he convinces an army of Reddit traders to invest in the fledgling stock and, in doing so, nets them life-changing gains.
Before that, in The Batman, as The Riddler, he was live-streaming to Gotham, a twisted wisdom of unmasking the cesspool of injustice and in what is still his most iconic role, he led a church with the doctrine of universal salvation in There Will Be Blood (2007).
His ecclesiastical energy is uncanny.
Dano's journey for a higher truth resonates in all his characterizations. It’s why we love to watch him on screen.
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