I know! But still! 
His acting still didn't impress me. It came off as forced to me. It wasn't natural like DDL's performance.
That's fair. One thing that interested me was that Dano was originally up for only the brother role. He stepped into the preacher role at the last moment for some reason. Considering DDL had been preparing for the Plainview part for over a year, I thought Dano did a bang-up job.
I can see where he was annoying, though. I think it's kinda like the Baby Mario cry in Yoshi's Island, some people it just rubs the wrong way (even though that's what it was supposed to achieve.)
I think the main goal was for the audience to be completely uneasy everytime the preacher was on the screen, and much like Jaquin Phoenix in Gladiator, Dano delivered a very hated performance. For that he deserves credit, he created a very interesting character in a character piece.
edit: By that same token, though, I find that to be the biggest flaw in the movie. HW wasn't a really developed character (like it was said above he only becomes interesting after going deaf/mute) and other than a 20 min segment with DDL's 'brother,' there isn't a single interesting character in the movie. A three hour character piece with only two interesting characters is a stretch. The movie could have been better from this pov, however that has little with what I like about the movie (cinamatography, setting, special effects, set building, and the two performances.)
