The Unexpected Reason This Actor Was Fired From ‘There Will Be Blood’

At the heart of filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson‘s There Will Be Blood is the fraught and combative relationship between ruthless oil baron Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis) and devout preacher Eli Sunday (Paul Dano). Like boxers, they spar back and forth throughout much of the film’s 158-minute runtime, baiting, jabbing, and countering in relentless bouts of tension and outright disdain for one another. Given the volatile dynamic between the characters, finding the right actor to play second fiddle to Day-Lewis’ proved crucial to the film’s overall effectiveness, and Paul Dano more than holds his own against the three-time Oscar-winning actor.

Dano, however, wasn’t Anderson’s first choice for the role of Eli Sunday. Just a few weeks into There Will Be Blood‘s shooting schedule, the actor originally hired for the role was fired from the production, leading tabloids to speculate that Day-Lewis, famous for taking an intensely method approach to performances, had intimidated his co-star to a point beyond repair. But like many sensational Hollywood stories, the behind-the-scenes drama surrounding this casting mishap is more gray than black-and-white.

There Will Be Blood

A story of family, religion, hatred, oil and madness, focusing on a turn-of-the-century prospector in the early days of the business.

Release Date

December 28, 2007

Director

Paul Thomas Anderson

Cast

daniel day-lewis , Martin Stringer , Matthew Braden Stringer , Jacob Stringer , Joseph Mussey , Barry Del Sherman

Runtime

158 minutes

Writers

Paul Thomas Anderson , Upton Sinclair

Who Was Originally Cast as Eli Sunday in ‘There Will Be Blood’?

Going toe-to-toe with Daniel Day Lewis is a tall order for any performer, and the actor originally hired to do so in There Will Be Blood was Kel O’Neill. For O’Neilll, acting wasn’t a lifelong dream or passion but rather something he continued with after appearing in stage plays as a child. “Acting was like an assumption on my own part about who I was, and what I did,” he told Vulture in 2017. While the young performer had a handful of credits to his name, including roles in Tony Scott‘s Domino, Pulse, and Brian De Palma‘s Redacted, O’Neill’s biggest break came when, a year after submitting a taped audition, he landed the role of Eli Sunday in There Will Be Blood.

At Paul Thomas Anderson’s request, O’Neill arrived weeks early to the film’s shooting location in Texas to “soak up the isolation.” According to the actor, the shoot kicked off in a professional and friendly manner, saying of Day-Lewis, “After we did our first scene, he came over, shook my hand and said — sort of in character and sort of not — ‘Welcome.'” But it wasn’t long before O’Neill suspected that something was off, and that it was stemming from his creative relationship-or lack thereof-with Anderson. As O’Neill recalls, working with Anderson didn’t have the kind of comforting and collaborative dynamic he’d experienced with other filmmakers, largely attributing the disconnect to his inability to give Anderson what he needed by the day’s end. “You know, you just know,” he said of his sneaking suspicion that things weren’t working. As it turns out, O’Neill’s fear came to fruition a short time later.

Kel O’Neill Was Replaced by Paul Dano on ‘There Will Be Blood’

Just a few weeks into the production of There Will Be Blood, Kel O’Neill’ discovered his name had been removed from the upcoming schedule. Upon meeting with Paul Thomas Anderson and producer JoAnne Sellar, the actor was officially fired from the film. As he’d later reveal, the sudden realization was less heartbreaking than it was liberating, telling Vulture, “I remember a good deal of solitude, thinking a lot about what I was gonna do next.” In hindsight, he seems to have considered being fired as a blessing in disguise, as it gave him an opportunity to reevaluate his personal and professional endeavors. “I knew that this was a critical juncture in my life and if there were any goals that I had been sublimating to pursue acting, I had to go after those,” he said.

While O’Neill’s firing appears to have been a relatively mutual decision on his part and that of Anderson and Sellar, that didn’t stop the tabloids from pushing sensational speculation over the circumstances surrounding his unfortunate ousting. Per The New York Times, reports surfaced claiming O’Neill was fired because he was intimidated by Daniel Day-Lewis, a claim Anderson has rejected. “It just wasn’t the right fit,” he said when There Will Be Blood hit theaters.

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After O’Neill was fired, Paul Dano, who had already been cast as Paul Sunday, was tapped to add the pivotal part of Eli to his performative plate. With very little time to prepare for the much larger role, Dano took the experience in stride and dove in headfirst. “On There Will Be Blood I was cast at the last minute,” he said in an interview with Indiewire. “I had 3 1/2 to 4 days to get ready for the first day. That was just guts and instinct, not a lot of preparation.” To Dano’s credit, the intensity and overall quality of his performance, especially playing off of an actor of Daniel Day-Lewis’ caliber, is an enduring testament to his fearless abilities as an actor.

Kel O’Neill Abandoned Acting To Pursue Filmmaking

Kel O’Neill may have lost out on the opportunity to appear in one of this century’s greatest films thus far, but that didn’t stop him from continuing to work within the cinematic medium. “There’s a lot of fun to be had in acting, but it’s not a craft I wake up with the desire to do every day,” he admitted. Fortunately, however, O’Neill eventually found his calling and passion via experimental filmmaking. Along with his wife, Eline Jongsma, he embarked on a creative odyssey characterized as “working at the intersection of documentary film, art, and technology,” which included interactive and virtual-reality documentaries through Sundance.

For the actor-turned-filmmaker, there appears to be little to no love lost when it comes to his desire to act in mainstream projects, though the experience of being fired from There Will Be Blood wasn’t without lingering effects. According to O’Neill, he has never seen There Will Be Blood and seems to be in no hurry to do so, although he hasn’t completely avoided catching a glimpse of Paul Thomas Anderson’s film. Speaking to Vulture in 2017, he revealed that he once saw the film playing in a video store and thought to himself, “Looks like a good movie.”

There Will Be Blood is currently available to stream on Paramount+ in the U.S.

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