-Looking sharp, bud. Thanks so much
for coming back to the show.
-Thanks for having me.
-You know, we had Kate McKinnon
out here just now.
-I know. -Yeah, and I was like,
"Well, maybe they know each other."
We like to see if our guests know each other.
-We have quite a history.
[ Laughter ] -You certainly do.
This is a picture of you. You met at the
Independent Spirit Awards. Is that correct?
-This is our first time meeting. -[Both] Yeah.
-And this is a picture of Kate coming by you.
This is during her monologue, maybe, or something.
[ Laughter ] -Yeah.
That's a mouthful of ham.
[ Laughter ] Remember that.
-She has ham in her mouth?
She has ham in her mouth and then this happened.
[ Laughter ]
[ Cheering ] -Yeah. Ahem. -Wow.
Yeah. The reason she's not out here
is, that night, we promised each other
we would never see each other again
[ Laughter ] because we knew
we would destroy each other's lives.
-Yeah, of course, yeah. -Yeah.
-Wow, that's getting to know someone right there, Paul.
-I miss the simpler days, when you could just
kiss a stranger with a mouth full of him.
[ Laughter and cheering ] -Thank you.
Not the first time I heard that. Yeah, right. Yeah.
-Hasn't flown the past couple of years, yeah.
-Pal, I saw "The Batman" the other night
and you are fantastic -Thank you.
in this as The Riddler. The reviews are great,
by the way. Congratulations on that. -Thank you.
[ Cheering and applause ] -Great reviews. -Thanks.
-I knew you were going to nail it.
But how did this come about?
Did you kind of petition for this or they wanted you?
-No, I actually didn't know much about it
and I got a weekend phone call,
which is always sort of good or bad news,
you know, the weekend phone call from work.
And I was actually backing out of a driveway
with my wife next to me and my dad in the back seat.
And the call came up on Bluetooth.
It was my agent and I was like,
"I'm not going to get this. It's the weekend."
And Zoe was like, "Pick up the phone."
Pick up the phone and it's like, you know,
"Matt Reeves wants to talk to you
about playing The Riddler and it looks," you know --
And when I hear good news, I kind of just shut down.
I was like, "Okay. Okay.
[ Laughter ] Okay. Okay."
So I hung up the phone and Zoe's like,
"Oh, my God. What happened?
Like, what's wrong?" You know, and I was like,
'I think they want me to play The Riddler."
And she started freaking out and I was freaking out.
My dad's in the back seat and he's like,
"What's so exciting up there?"
[ Laughter ] And I didn't want to tell him
because it wasn't totally in the bag yet,
but also my dad has me on like Google alert.
He calls his friends about stuff.
[ Laughter ]
And I didn't want him to be like
the leak, you know...
[ Laughter ]
...before it was all good.
-So you had to lie to your dad? -I had to lie to my dad.
But we had this two-hour car ride,
where, the whole time,
Zoe and I are going like, "[Bleep]."
[ Laughter ]
And my dad's, "What's going on?"
And then I knew, when we got back to my parents' house --
we were visiting --
he was trying to figure it out online
[ Laughter ] and he couldn't.
-And then like a week later, I could tell him, but, yeah.
-Well, here's a picture of you as The Riddler and this is --
look at how frightening this is.
[ Cheering and oohs ] -[Both] Yeah.
When did you find out you weren't going to be
a Riddler that wore like
an outfit with question marks on it?
[ Laughter ] -Well, my agent, who's backstage,
just reminded me that the first thing I said to him
after I read the script was,
"There ain't any green spandex in this one."
[ Laughter ] -Yeah, no, no.
This is dark. -Yeah, no.
The first time I read the script, I mean, Matt Reeves,
it is a completely singular vision he's got for this thing.
I was totally blown away by the script, which, frankly,
I wasn't expecting to be.
Given that it's a superhero film,
there are so many, I felt so lucky like
I get to do this one because I thought it was so good
and it's an interesting take on the character.
-Yeah, it's dark.
Did you get to bring any of your own ideas to this?
-Yeah, sure. -Was the mask your thing?
-Yeah, okay, so there's kind of like
a vigilante thing here, right?
Maybe my character doesn't quite have the same resources
as, say, another vigilante and so
[ Laughter ] it's kind of more of a home grown costume.
and I wanted -- -It's a very interesting take, yeah.
-Yeah, yeah, so I wanted like.
He still needs to be able to go out in the day,
a la Bruce Wayne, right?
So I couldn't shave all the hair
off my body for like DNA.
I wanted the details covered. He's super meticulous.
So I had this idea of like wrapping myself in --
I have to call it cling wrap
because I think the Saran people don't want
[ Laughter ] any legal association
with my Riddler.
[ Laughter ] I wrapped myself in cling wrap,
which kind of looks scary, you know, with the light.
And I thought, "Okay, now I'm not going to shed
any hairs here on these crime scenes."
And then, the first day of filming, about an hour in,
I just start to see white and colors and my brain is --
things are getting very -- And it's day one,
so you don't want to be the actor who's like...
-Complaining? -...yeah, "I've got a little headache here,
a little problem," you know.
-Sweating? -You kind of suck it up.
You know, you can't sweat. That's the issue.
It's like going back inside of you.
[ Laughter ] -It's so clingy.
-It's so sealed.
So I made it through day one without telling anybody
that I was like -- and I got home that night
and I'm probably Googling "brain swelling" in my bed
[ Laughter ] and I'm like, "Okay, is this a problem?"
And then, you know. Or I was like,
"Is this the character? Oh, my God,
this is going to be a long shoot," you know?
-Yeah, exactly. -And then the next day,
we just started to poke some holes in the cling wrap.
My head could breathe. Things got a little better.
And I might as well take this opportunity
to offer a disclaimer to any Halloween costumers
or cosplay fans out there --
maybe skip the cling wrap.
[ Laughter ] -You don't need to do the cling wrap
to be your Riddler. -Yeah.
-Yeah.
It's amazing, your transformation
and how you do this guy because he's creepy, man,
and it's scary and it's frightening.
And I go, "Oh, this is how he's playing this,"
and I go, "This is a dark Batman."
But the idea is that it's Batman's only second year
being the Batman. -Yeah, yeah.
-And so the cops don't really know if they can trust him.
The public doesn't know if they can trust.
-And it also kind of turns morality on its head.
So, yeah, it's like an immersive action spectacle
that's also a serial killer mystery,
psychological thriller, horror film.
-Yeah. Yeah. -Yeah.
You got to go see it on the biggest screen you can.
I think it's -- I really like it.
-It's beautifully shot and it's so well done, bud.
And this is the scene I really wanted to show
-Great. -because this is just Paul Dano
at his best, showing you how to do it, man. I love it.
Here's Paul Dano in "The Batman."
Take a look at this.
[ Suspenseful music plays ] [ Rain falling ]
♪♪
[ Indistinct voice on TV ]
[ Door opens ] -Police!
Hands up!
-Ah-choo!
♪♪
-He said, put your [audio drop] hands up,
you son of a [audio drop].
♪♪
[ Stool creaking ]
♪♪
[ Creaking ]
♪♪
-Yeah!
[ Cheering and applause ] [ Laughs ]
Paul Dano, everybody.
"The Batman" is in theaters and IMAX this Friday.