10 Great Performances That Were Overshadowed By Their Co-Stars

6. Paul Dano - There Will Be Blood

Overshadowed By: Daniel Day-Lewis When you go up against Daniel Day-Lewis, you're asking for trouble... and yet Paul Dano, who was brave enough to do so in There Will Be Blood (and in a Paul Thomas Anderson film, no less) manages to hold his own for the sum of two and a half hours. As preacher Eli Sunday, Dano is the antagonist to Day-Lewis' ruthless oil man Daniel Plainview - a constant weight on his shoulders, and - in a way - his nemesis. Dano plays Eli with a strange but grating self-righteousness. He gets on Daniel's nerves as he gets on our own. But Dano knows what he's doing. So whereas it was Day-Lewis who received the Academy Award for Best Actor and near enough every other accolade available, there were very few nominations thrown at Dano. What we have to remember here is that this young actor successfully managed to create a character who was meek and nebbish but also capable of providing Daniel Plainview with a genuinely disorienting rival. It's a masterful performance, totally underrated in every way, and one that was ingloriously pushed aside whilst the world chose to gush at Daniel Day-Lewis' instead.