Dano: "You try to get to know your character as best as you can before you start filming - what's written and not written."

Dano: "I like movies a lot, and I feel really excited when I see a movie that moves me the right way."

Dano: "One thing you notice is, there's a lot of people with raw talent, and then there's people who take that talent and work hard."

Dano: "I think the idea is to try and understand everything about the characters and where the character is coming from, from their point of view, why they say what they do. And not, 'Oh, but I would never say that. Why does the character say that?' But then making it as personal as possible."

Dano: "I started acting pretty young, so I haven't had too many odd jobs. But I used to sell candy out of my locker in middle school."

Dano: "I really don't want to go to work every day convincing myself of what I'm saying. I want the material to make me a better actor; then I try to return the favor to the material."

[On if he acts everyday]

Dano: "I’d like to say no, because I try to live a fairly honest life. Of course, if we wanted to be semantical about it, we could say that when you are in a bad mood, but you still put on a good face for somebody, you’re acting."

[On if he changes his clothes when writing for work]

Dano: "Not always and not superstitiously. There was one time when I was writing that I needed to separate my two lives, so I put on a sweater every day when I was gonna write as a way to signal to the body that it was time to focus on writing."

Dano: "I sort of grew up doing theater. And that's how I got into film, actually."

Dano: "I think it is important to make sure that I have my real life as well, because Hollywood can certainly seem like an alternate reality sometimes."

Dano: "One of the hardest things to do is to just continue to get to know yourself and be yourself when you’re constantly at the behest of other people for your work. How to find yourself in an industry that sometimes feels so shallow?"

Dano: "I feel like, once you're doing a job, you shouldn't talk about it."

[On if he believes in the American dream]

Dano: "That’s something I explore in my work quite a bit. I’m redefining my dream. So yes, but totally no, as well. I like exploring that subject matter. I find great conflict in it."

Dano: "I don't normally like getting dressed up, but when I go to events, I like to look put together. I've got to say, getting in a nice suit feels good."

Dano: "People have asked me about playing outsiders. I don't consider myself an outsider. Maybe that's why I'm interested in that. I'm not really sure."

Dano: "We have to be allowed to have a voice, but not even for the sake of art — for the sake of people, especially when you see somebody in office trying to censor the media by lying so much and cultivating a world where lies are suddenly carry meaning. It’s important that we’re not censored in this moment because where would we be? Who would we be listening to? That said, am I gonna want my 5-year-old playing super violent video games? Probably not. I don’t know if that’s censorship."

[On if people should live in outer space]

Dano: "It depends. Space is cool, but we’ll see what happens after this administration, and we’ll see what happens to this planet. We may have no choice."

Dano: "Everything you do, every experience that you have, enlightens you a little bit or worsens you."

Dano: "I love filming in New York. I love New York movies, too. I just like it when people can take New York and make it their own, because there are so many different New Yorks."

Dano: "As an actor, the toughest thing is being subject to circumstance. Meaning: What scripts are out there that are available?"

Dano: "As an actor, I don’t usually want to watch my work. I have the context of what I felt when I saw it, and the culture around it, and blah, blah, blah. In my personal experience, making something means more to me as time goes by more than it did 5 or 10 years ago."

Dano: "There's a lot of people that I would love to work with. There's a lot of different kinds of parts I wanna play. As your career progresses, you hope that you get some more opportunity or some more choice."

Dano: "It's a funny thing. You sort of never figure it out with acting. You're always learning."

Dano: "I think was overly empathetic for a while in my life."

Dano: "Some projects go as you hope or imagine, and some change or reveal themselves in a different way; it depends."

Dano: "It's hard to talk about acting because I don't think it's quite as explicit as a lot of people might think. And that's probably the best thing about it."

Dano: "Sometimes we fall in love with the idea of a person and have trouble seeing the real thing."

Dano: "I don't like to spend a lot of money on haircuts: I'll sometimes grow my hair and get an acting job and get them to cut it for free. I think for a lady, though, it's okay to spend a lot on a haircut."

Dano: "In life, you have to keep certain parts of yourself in check because you want to be a decent human being. But one of the guilty pleasures of acting is that sometimes you get to let a little something out that you don't in life because it's not right."

Dano: "I don't want my learning curve to be stunted by just all of a sudden doing work all the time and not being careful about the work that I'm doing."

Dano: "In tragedy, it's hard to find a good resolution; it's not black and white: it's a big fog of gray."

Dano: "There's that thing that if you want to have any kind of lasting love, I think you have to love the whole person and not just the parts of them that you choose."

Dano: "The way Hollywood works, you're never sure if their first thought is to make a great film and honor the material or just another business property."

Dano: "Homeless people really upset me when I was little. A lot of kids have this reaction, but I would get really worried or sad or concerned or cry."

[On if he believes in God]

Dano: "I don’t want to answer that explicitly. I do believe in possibilities — life beyond us, spiritual realms. I believe in faith. That kind of says my answer."

Dano: "When I'm not excited, it makes acting very hard for me."

Dano: "I've seen people, where if they have to wait around the set for three hours, and they call you at the wrong time, and they're not ready for you, some people don't like that."

Interview Magazine: "In many ways, it was a perfect opportunity for Dano to express the full spectrum of his personality in a way that neatly melded his calm personal disposition with the off-kilter rage he’s made a signature move, to great effect, for over 100 performances. Dano’s performance covered such a cavernous emotional spectrum..."