Tim Dowling: my wife has an unwholesome attraction to the actor Paul Dano

It is the evening of the last episode of War And Peace, and my wife is a little overexcited. Scenes from previous episodes flash before us on the screen.

“You should learn ballroom dancing,” she says to the youngest one.

He turns to her. “Are you on meth?” he asks.

“I love him,” she says, pointing at the television.

I know that she is referring not to Pierre Bezukhov, but to the actor who plays him, Paul Dano. I hear this every week. “Yeah, he’s good, whatever,” I say.

“I discovered him,” she says.

“I don’t think you did,” I say.

“I spotted him years ago,” she says, “and said he was going to be big.”

“You didn’t say it to me,” I say. “Did you write it down anywhere?”

“I’m outta here,” the youngest says, standing up.

Napoleon invades Moscow, driving the aristocracy from their homes. Pierre is arrested. He dodges a firing squad, but ends up languishing in prison. “I have strange feelings for him,” my wife says, meaning the actor Paul Dano.

“Maternal feelings?” I say.

“No,” she says. “They’re not healthy feelings. I can’t explain.”

“I’m not asking you to explain,” I say.

Napoleon retreats from Moscow. Pierre is rescued. My wife shares her complicated feelings for Paul Dano with a friend, by text. War And Peace ends in a way that my wife, due to her temporary inability to separate actor from character, finds unsatisfactory. “She’s annoying,” my wife says.

“They were destined to be together,” I say. “It’s in the book.”

“Hmm,” my wife says.

My wife is still going on about her unwholesome attraction to the actor Paul Dano while I’m brushing my teeth. “I don’t know what it is about him,” she says, from the bedroom.

“I think it might be a good idea if you stopped talking about it for a while,” I say, in the diffident voice of the actor Paul Dano.

A brief silence follows. “Do that again,” she says.

“Do what?” I say, in the voice of Paul Dano. “I’m not really aware that I’m…”

“Oh my God,” she says. “You sound just like him. How are you doing that?”

I don’t really know how I’m doing it. It could be that Paul Dano and I share a naturally hesitant manner of speaking, or it could be that we have similar accents because, as I will later discover, we both come from the same part of Connecticut. To be honest, the impersonation doesn’t sound that convincing to me. I turn off the bathroom light and sit down on the edge of the bed.

“It’s, you know, just the way I talk sometimes,” I say, in the voice of Paul Dano.

“That’s so weird,” my wife says, grabbing my arm. “Keep going.”

“I’ll try, but I’m about to run out of things to say in this voice.”

“It’s doing something to my brain,” she says. “I think it’s giving me MRSA.”

“You mean ASMR,” I say, in my voice. “Like in those videos where the women fold towels.”

“Yeah, that,” she says.

“MRSA is a superbug,” I say.

“More please.”

“More of this, do you mean?” I say, in the actor Paul Dano’s voice.

“Oh my God!” my wife says.

“Can we stop now?” I say, in my voice. “It’s starting to make me uncomfortable.”

“Just until I fall asleep,” she says.

“You could watch a bit of the towel-folding lady on your phone,” I say.

“It’s not the same,” she says.

“I’m afraid that you and I can never be together,” I say, in the voice of actor Paul Dano.

“I think you’ll find we can,” my wife says.