A rumor that circulated online in December 2025 claimed a picture showed Oscar-winning writer and director Quentin Tarantino glaring at actor Paul Dano during a red-carpet event.
For example, on Dec. 7, a Reddit user posted (archived) the supposed picture with the caption, "I'M ACTUALLY WHEEZING RN."
(u/ky0dan via Reddit)
The image shows Dano — wearing glasses with a black suit, white dress shirt and bow tie — being interviewed at an press event, perhaps a red-carpet function. In the background, Tarantino — wearing a black suit with a black shirt and black tie — glares at the back of Dano's head while standing in front of a backdrop displaying sponsor logos for Fiji bottled water, Milagro tequila and other brands.
Users shared the purported picture on 4chan, Bluesky (archived), Facebook (archived), Instagram (archived), Threads (archived) and X (archived), in the days after Tarantino appeared on author and screenwriter Bret Easton Ellis's "The Bret Easton Ellis Podcast," in which Tarantino criticized Dano's acting, both generally and specifically relating to the 2007 film "There Will Be Blood." Snopes' transcription of that conversation appears later in this article.
In short, the image was fake and was created with artificial intelligence. After the initial publishing of this article, Reddit user u/p_yth emailed Snopes with information and evidence showing how the picture was created with the Google Gemini AI platform, specifically its Nano Banana Pro image-generation model. While much of the backdrop of the image was authentic, the user prompted the AI tool to add pictures of Dano and Tarantino.
The user told us, "Some sources online are misattributing the meme's origin, and I wanted to provide accurate information for fact-checking purposes."
We contacted representatives for Dano and Tarantino to ask if either wished to comment about the fake photo and will update this article if we receive further information.
How the fake image was created
On Dec. 6, Reddit user u/p_yth first posted (archived) the fake image of Tarantino glaring at Dano on the r/okbuddycinephile subreddit. The post's title read, "Average A24 fan vs. Average Miramax enjoyer."
(u/p_yth via Reddit)
Days later, on Dec. 9, the user posted (archived) on the same subreddit, "I faked the Quentin Tarantino glaring at Paul Dano meme using Gemini." The post's text read, in part, "I made it a couple days ago without really thinking about it cause of the Quentin Tarantino/Paul Dano situation. I thought it would be just a really funny image but I didn't expect it to spread."
In the post, the user attached screenshots showing the process of creating the fake image. First, the user uploaded a meme showing a red carpet event with "Superman & Lois" TV series actor Tyler Hoechlin standing behind actor Antony Starr, known for his role as Homelander in the Prime Video streaming series "The Boys." The meme read, "That time, we got Superman and Homelander IRL…" The picture originated from the KTLA YouTube channel's video from the 2023 Critics Choice Awards' red-carpet event on Jan. 15, 2023.
The user's text prompt — the instructions for Google Gemini — read, "Replace the guy in front with Paul Dano, and the guy in the back with Quentin Tarantino."
(u/p_yth via Reddit)
The user then prompted the AI tool to remove the displayed text reading, "That time, we got Superman and Homelander IRL…"
(u/p_yth via Reddit)
"Kinda crazy how AI nowadays allows super real images like this to exist now," the user wrote in the post. "I swore to stop doing stuff like this but recently the advent of AI has made it tempting. Sorry for faking it. Anyways, if I knew it would spread like this I wouldn't [have] done it."
What Tarantino said about Dano
On the Dec. 2 episode of "The Bret Easton Ellis Podcast," Tarantino listed some of his favorite films of the century. He provided his thoughts about Dano's acting in general, as well as his performance in Paul Thomas Anderson's 2007 film, "There Will Be Blood." Tarantino placed the movie in the No. 5 spot on his list.
Ellis' podcast episode, available only to paying subscribers, featured the following remarks:
ELLIS: So, what was it that you really loved about it from the first viewing?
TARANTINO: Daniel Day-Lewis's performance and the almost old-style craftsmanship quality to the film but without being a journeyman craftsman. But it had an old Hollywood craftsmanship without ever trying to be like that, and actually being very flexible. I mean, you know, it was his only movie he had ever done, and I even remember bringing it up to him, that really doesn't have a set piece. You know, the oil fire is the closest thing to a set piece in it. And he goes, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's about the closest I ever get to it. Now, this is just about dealing with the narrative, dealing with the story, dealing with the story, dealing with the story, and he did it f***ing amazingly.
ELLIS: And it really is, you have to remember, just a character study of this one person, and then everything spreads out from that. It's not like there's this giant cast of characters like in "Boogie Nights" or "Magnolia."
TARANTINO: Now, I would say though, "There Will Be Blood" would stand a better chance to be in No. 1 or No. 2 if it didn't have a big, giant flaw in it, and the flaw is Paul Dano. Obviously, it's supposed to be a two-hander, and it's also so drastically obvious that it's not a two-hander.
ELLIS: Interesting that you bring that up now. I would not have thought that but now that you say that, I can, that can be distracting, I guess.
TARANTINO: He is weak sauce, man. He's a weak sister.
ELLIS: Is it the character?
TARATINO: He's eating him aliv— No, another terrific actor … Austin Butler would have been wonderful in that role.
ELLIS: So it really was a matter of the wrong actor, wrong role?
TARANTINO: He's just such a weak, weak, uninteresting guy.
ELLIS: Yeah.
TARANTINO: [laughing]
ELLIS: I think I find him more interesting than you do. So, Daniel Day-Lewis needed a stronger, like "foil"?
TARANTINO: Well, Daniel Day-Lewis shows that he doesn't need that. The movie needs a stron— He doesn't need anything. [laughing]
ELLIS: Right, yeah.
TARANTINO: The movie would have had more— There would have been more stringiness to the beef. [inaudible] It's supposed to be a two-hander. And it's not. [laughing]
ELLIS: I guess ultimately it is. You're right. But Daniel Day-Lewis also makes it impossible for it to be a two-hander because there are aspects to that performance that are so gargantuan. It's like he's about to eat the audience. You know, what else can he do? How much more can he take this …
TARANTINO: [laughing] So, you put him with the weakest male actor in SAG?
ELLIS: Uh, I tr—
TARANTINO: With the limpest d*** in the world? [laughing]
ELLIS: Oh, I don't know. I don't know. I do think that for what Paul Dano had to do, that he was quite good, in what he had to do, so I'm kind of defending Paul Dano a little bit.
TARANTINO: Ok, ok — I'm not saying he's giving a terrible performance. I'm saying he's giving a nonentity performance.
ELLIS: Have you liked him in anything?
TARANTINO: I don't care for him, but you know, I don't care for — I don't care for him, I don't care for Owen Wilson, I don't care for Matthew Lillard.
ELLIS: Yeah, I get it. Oh, and I have my own list, too.
The full episode provides complete context for both of their remarks, including tone and other aspects not conveyed in a transcription.
For further reading, in 1997, Snopes reported on a rumor concerning the contents of a briefcase in Tarantino's 1994 film, "Pulp Fiction."