Paul Dano is here to bring trauma to the forefront in the most pop culture, mainstream way possible - in the form of a comic book surrounding his The Batman character, Riddler. Since the project, titled Riddler: Year One was announced back in March, fans have been eager to learn more about what will be Dano’s first step into the world of animated, on page storytelling. With the six-issue Black Label Bimonthly Limited Series soon hitting shelves in October, Dano sat down with Empire to discuss his vision for the project.
In what the There Will Be Blood star has described as a background telling of how an ordinary accountant named Edward Nashton would transform into one of Batman’s arch nemeses, the story will center around those early days of Nashton’s traumatic and dismal life that led him down the path of becoming a serial killer. Through Dano’s preparation to take on the dark role, he says that he formed a “backstory”, better allowing him to understand the maniacal villain’s drive for committing his heinous crimes.
Instead of creating a character journal as many performers do, Dano instead began to pen a comic book and then took it to The Batman director Matt Reeves and the film’s producer Dylan Clark. In his decision to move forward with the piece, Dano said, “I secretly thought, ‘This could be kind of cool as a comic,’” setting things in motion for the Stevan Subic animated project. In what Dano referred to as “an emotional story about trauma,” the publication promises to deliver on the rise of Riddler while tackling another, less talked about side of the bad guys in superhero pieces.
Outside the colorful pages of comic book creation, Dano is gearing up for the release of two films, preparing to shoot another, and was recently announced to have been cast to star in Prime Video's small-screen take on Mr. and Mrs. Smith, where the actor will appear alongside a lineup that so far includes Maya Erskine, Donald Glover, John Turturro, and Michaela Coel. In the feature-length world, Dano will soon be seen in Steven Spielberg’s coming-of-age drama The Fableman’s as well as Johan Renck’s sci-fi flick, Spaceman, the latter of which is in post-production and eyeing a release date of sometime in 2023. Meanwhile, it was recently announced that Dano would be appearing alongside the likes of Sebastian Stan, Pete Davidson, and Seth Rogen in Dumb Money, a feature about the GameStop scandal.
If you haven’t yet seen it, you can catch The Batman streaming on HBO Max before the first issue of Riddler: Year One lands on shelves in October with bimonthly releases to follow.