Paul Dano on 'Love & Mercy', the Beach Boys, and how he tackled the role of a Sixties rock god

The 'Little Miss Sunshine' star is now making waves playing troubled genius Brian Wilson

California guy: Paul Dano in 'Love & Mercy'

American actor Paul Dano has a laid-back, occasionally laconic manner that makes his sentences have the cycle of a wave; they develop with intent, rise up to a peak, and then crash into themselves. He gives tidbits of information rather than great oratory. A trait he uses to great effect with the characters he's played in films as far ranging as Little Miss Sunshine and There Will Be Blood. This reluctance to string full sentences together is combined with his believing, "It's so hard to talk about yourself. It can be tough."

In many ways this mysteriousness makes the 30-year-old the ideal actor to play Beach Boy Brian Wilson, whose importance to the development of pop music is celebrated in Bill Pohlad's idiosyncratic Love & Mercy. Pohlad eschews a traditional biopic narrative and instead focuses on two pivotal points in the life of the musician. The first is the writing of the Beach Boys 11th studio album, Pet Sounds, which flopped on its release Stateside in 1966, but went on to be considered one of the most influential pop albums. The second is his courtship of his second wife, Melinda Ledbetter, who was able to help the musician escape the influence of therapist Dr Eugene Landy, who abused his position of trust when also becoming Wilson's manager, business partner and confidant in the Eighties.

Reinforcing the impression that these two periods show different sides to Wilson, Dano plays Sixties-era Wilson while John Cusack essays him in the Eighties. They also play the role completely differently. Dano is guided by archive footage of Wilson and gained weight for the role, while Cusack's policy is to capture the essence of the man struggling with illness rather than attempt any form of mimicry. Pohlad wants us to acknowledge that the Beach Boy basically become a different man because of Landy's experimental treatment methods. Dano says that he didn't even chat to Cusack about performance: "I think Bill Pohlad didn't want us to communicate about what we were going to do," states Dano. "And I think that was the right instinct and it shows us a lot trust and belief."

Brian Wilson (third left) with the Beach Boys in 1964 (Getty)

When the focus of conversation is on others, Dano is at his most lucid. "Brian in the Sixties and Brian in the Eighties, he really did kind of go somewhere and had to come back. The juxtaposition of seeing somebody super-alive at the studio and then somebody kind of in bed or whatever, I think the important thing is capturing his spirit a little bit."

The actor admits that he didn't know much about the singer's mental health issues before he read the script, but of course he knew the sounds of the Beach Boys, which have become a teenage rites of passage for many. It was the songs that allowed the actor to capture Wilson. Dano is also the guitarist and lead singer of rock band Mook, although it's been a few years since they performed publicly and the singer now describes himself as someone who plays with friends.

"You have to be careful about not playing the idea of mental illness ... My impression was that the best way to know Brian was through his music. So I think that learning to play and sing the music put me in touch with him more than anything. I think one of the beauties of Brian's work is that it is so accessible, yet it's actually really complicated and complex."

Brian Wilson would occasionally turn up on set. One time he did so was during a recording session. "That was really intimidating," Dano says without changing his tone to show any sense of excitement or trepidation. "But I think it was also really cool to have him there. We were in the exact studio where he recorded Pet Sounds. I think it was really a trip for him to be back there in the studio. Brian is such a strong spirit; you definitely get something from him being in the room."

Paul Dano, star of Little Miss Sunshine (Rex)

When tasked with playing a certain type of offbeat and quirky character there are few better than the New York native. Dano's career started before he was in his teenage years. Although he recalls that this was haphazard, rather than from any real ambition, "I would say it was more accidental. I started doing community theatre, which was recreational, it was like going to soccer practice or something. I think from that I got asked to go to do a regional play, which is technically professional, but not in the city, just a little thing. From that someone kind of asked me to do a Broadway thing. It just sort of happened." And that's how he had a Broadway debut aged 12 in a revival of Inherit the Wind.

Wanting to play basketball, it took him a few years to be convinced that acting should be his vocation. "I always then tried to go away from it for a little bit. I don't think that it was until I was in college that I said that I really want to be an actor."

At the age of 17 he made his movie debut in L.I.E, playing a teenager who starts up a friendship with a fiftysomething paedophile played by Brian Cox. The character he played in the 2001 drama was a misfit whose mother died, looking to find a way to belong, and it immediately set the template for his career. In 2006 Dano starred in the sleeper hit Little Miss Sunshine playing a 15-year-old who has taken a vow of silence, which ensures he won't speak to his mother and stepfather while they're on an 800-mile road trip. The performance brought him into the mainstream. In 2013's Prisoners, he was haunting as he played a mentally ill man accused of kidnapping. He also played a writer, whose words begin to affect reality in Ruby Sparks, which was written and co-starred his girlfriend since 2007, Zoe Kazan.

He also appeared in what is one of the most famous scenes from any film in the past decade, the "I drink your milkshake!" two-hander with Daniel Day-Lewis in There Will Be Blood. Did he have any inkling during the filming that this scene would become so iconic? "I think we spent like two and a half days in that bowling alley. It's kind of a blur, but there was a lot of sweat. Daniel is one of the most surprising and beautiful actors there is, and it was always a thrill to do a scene for the first time and see what came out of him. But there was certainly no thought during the bowling alley scene of what you are asking, I was just trying to not get hit."

Next up we shall see Dano in Paulo Sorrentino's Youth, which debuted at Cannes. In a supporting role to Michael Caine and Harvey Keitel, Dano plays an actor troubled by the fact that he's best known for performing as a robot. It's another quirky turn, in a movie that revels in having Felliniesque characters.

'Love & Mercy' is out on Friday