Claim:
A picture authentically shows film director Quentin Tarantino glaring at actor Paul Dano during a red-carpet event.
Rating:
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 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 an unusually complex fake, at that. The image did not display obvious signs of artificial-intelligence manipulation but did feature the use of more classic image-editing methods, such as Adobe Photoshop. Someone combined several different images of Dano, Tarantino and screenshots from an awards show red-carpet video in order to create the image.
Snopes contacted representatives for Dano and Tarantino to ask if either wished to comment about the fake photo. We will update this article if we receive further information.
The backdrop of the fake image
According to reverse-image searches, the 4chan image-board website hosted the oldest post of the image showing Tarantino glaring at Dano. That post was made during early-morning hours in the U.S. on Dec. 7. The poster’s name displayed as Anonymous.
The user who created the image combined elements from several moments involving different pieces of media. Again, the fake picture did not display any obvious signs of AI manipulation.
The backdrop originated from around 1:19:27-1:19:30 marks in the KTLA YouTube channel’s video from the 2023 Critics Choice Awards’ red-carpet event on Jan. 15, 2023. That backdrop depicted not a single screenshot from the video but instead several images — showing the complexity of the process by whoever created the fake photo.
In that moment of the broadcast, KTLA hosts interviewed actor Antony Starr. An unidentified person’s shoulder appears on the left side of the frame, as does the back of a man’s head on the right side of the frame.
In the fake image, the “S'” under Dano’s name originally appeared at the end of “THE BOYS,” a streaming series featuring Starr. The person who created the fake image possibly copied and pasted the Fiji logo from a previous moment to cover up the man’s head on the left side of the frame.
(KTLA 5/YouTube)
The image’s creator copied Dano’s name from his appearance during the broadcast at the 21:46 mark, showing him without glasses and wearing a blue suit. The Getty Images library of photos and videos did not contain any pictures of Tarantino that might help to confirm he attended the same awards show.
(KTLA 5/YouTube)
The Dano image
The person who created the fake picture superimposed a separate image of Dano on top of Starr. An exhaustive Getty Images search, as well as a YouTube search, did not find any instances in which Dano wore glasses to a red-carpet event, including with a black suit, white dress shirt and bow tie.
This version of the fake image, with increased shadow brightness, reveals a better look at its inauthenticity — including a slightly brighter background around the lettering in Dano’s name. (Anonymous/4chan)
Dano’s head, and possibly body, potentially originated from around the time he was promoting his 2018 film “Wildlife.” A Getty Images-hosted photo from Oct. 2, 2018, shows a different picture of Dano with a similar hairstyle while wearing glasses, possibly matching the glasses depicted in the fake image. The image of the black suit, white dress shirt and bow tie might have originated from the body of a different person.
Tarantino’s head and body
The person who created the fake image possibly combined two or three separate photos of Tarantino’s face, head, hair and body. For example, Tarantino made similar facial expressions in photos captured at the Golden Globe Awards in January 2020.
The user possibly added one of those faces — or his face from a very similar 2013 picture (below) — on top of a different photo of Tarantino’s body, head and hair — also from the same Golden Globe Awards. That user also possibly slightly manipulated parts of Tarantino’s face to give him a more contemptuous look.
The user creating the fake image possibly copied and pasted Tarantino’s face from this image, or a similar photo. (Getty Images)
Reddit user u/stormtroopr1977 repeatedly commented about some of the elements possibly included in the making of the fake image.
The meme connection
Reddit user u/db_i noted the fake image’s connection to a meme in a previous Reddit post titled, “Superman Sizing Up Homelander.”
(Reddit)
The meme referenced the fact that, in the original KTLA broadcast of the Critics Choice Awards’ red-carpet event, “Superman & Lois” TV series actor Tyler Hoechlin appeared over the left shoulder of Starr, who portrayed the character Homelander in “The Boys.” Hoechlin’s positioning in the meme placed him in the same spot as Tarantino in the fake image.
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.”
