Paul Dano is one of cinema’s most fascinating shape-shifters. He’s an actor capable of conveying heartbreak, danger, intellect, and fragility, sometimes all within the same silence.
In The Wizard of the Kremlin, arriving in theaters May 15, Dano steps into a world where power is currency, perception is weaponized, and truth feels negotiable. The film may be fictionalized, but it’s unmistakably tied to reality.
In this conversation with Awards Buzz’s Sari Cohen, Dano reflects on inhabiting characters who live in moral gray areas, the realism behind certain scenes, and why stories about power continue to take shape long after they debut. The actor discusses where this role lands in his repertoire, and how this story is ultimately about ambition, fear, loyalty, and the dangerous seduction of influence.
Check it out!
Starring as Vadim Baranov, a theater director who enters the world of politics and realizes all the world is a stage, Dano dives into uncharted territory. He stars opposite Jude Law as Vladimir Putin and Alicia Vikander as his love interest, Ksenia. The story itself tracks the rocky history of Russia’s transition from a Soviet dictatorship to czarism.
