Two weeks before the release of his latest film, The Extra Man, Paul Dano is back in his hometown for a week to promote the movie before flying back to New Mexico to continue filming alongside the likes of Harrison Ford and Daniel Craig (in the not-so-subtly titled Cowboys and Aliens). The Extra Man, in contrast, seems to be more in line with Dano’s previous work. The film is a quietly quirky adaptation of a novel by that quintessential young New York writer, Jonathan Ames.
     I meet Dano in a garish, orange-and-pink room in a SoHo hotel. The room was likely picked by a publicist but seems as though it could have been a set piece in the new film. After some conversation about the décor, Dano asks my permission to make a quick phone call to his girlfriend, Zoe Kazan (granddaughter of Elia). Since his break-out role in 2006’s Little Miss Sunshine, the young actor has worked with a string of A-list actors (Kevin Kline, Katie Holmes, and John C. Reilly star with him in The Extra Man). Still, he considers himself “a very normal dude”. We caught up with him to talk about how he picks his distinctive roles, how much he identifies with his characters, and his plans for the future.