Paul Dano might be the reason you first heard Sufjan Stevens. While making the 2006 indie hit Little Miss Sunshine, the actor was obsessed with Stevens’ album Michigan and played it for his co-stars as well as the film’s directors. “Everybody got super into it, and then we went to see him while we were filming,” Dano tells me over the phone. Two of Stevens’ songs ended up in the movie, though Dano feels a way about patting himself on the back for it. “I’m going to be so embarrassed if I’m, like, self-crediting myself,” he says. “But I have a nice memory of that concert.”

Whether or not Dano played a role in Stevens’ career, the singer-songwriter certainly played one in the making of Dano’s recent directorial debut, Wildlife, based on the Richard Ford novel of the same name. While writing the film, which looks at the unraveling of a marriage in 1960s Montana through the eyes of a 14-year-old boy, Dano had Stevens’ Carrie & Lowell on repeat. “He was definitely an important artist in terms of headspace when writing,” he says. “There’s an honesty to his stories about his past and his family that meet this film somewhere.”

Currently, the 34-year-old’s headspace is occupied by his and his longtime partner (and Wildlife co-writer) Zoe Kazan’s new daughter. “The baby loves Elton John,” he says. “I never realized how incredible his first string of albums are.” While Elton is slowly taking over his speakers, Dano is keeping busy, starring in the prison-break series “Escape at Dannemora,” which premieres this Sunday on Showtime, and rehearsing for a role in latest iteration of the classic play True West, which hits Broadway at the end of the year. These are the songs he listens to in between it all.

Vulfpeck: “Soft Parade”

I’m probably considered a quote-unquote “serious person,” but I sometimes want to listen to stuff that has a sense of humor—but is still totally badass. And [funk band] Vulfpeck is a good time. If they were taking themselves too seriously, it might be a little hard, because they’re so white—like, Michigan-white. But they somehow pull it off. They’re very good players, but there’s something about the way they let their freak flag fly that gives off a really healthy energy. They give people permission to show another part of themselves that likes to groove. When you see somebody be themselves completely, not conforming to anything and finding an audience, it’s a real miracle. There’s no compromise there. I was in from the first track I heard. It’s something primal. This would be my version of dance music.

Big Thief: “Mary”

For our anniversary, we gave ourselves a couple of hours away from the baby and went and saw Big Thief. I love their two albums, Masterpiece and Capacity, and I just started listening to [frontperson Adrianne Lenker’s] solo album, too. Her voice is so beautiful and intimate, and the words are really exquisite; I really love discovering a new artist with great words. Big Thief’s song “Mary” is divine. It’s so seductive—not sexually, but emotionally. There’s something that feels both stream-of-conscious and precise about the lyrics. And there’s a hint of the ’90s in there somewhere, which hits a nostalgic ache.

William Tyler: “Highway Anxiety”

There are many other William Tyler songs that I like, but I’m going to go with the first one I listened to, which is “Highway Anxiety.” That’s a great title, too, because it is like nine minutes of something washing over you. I love in music when something is just able to build on itself. It’s long but it’s not like it has that many crazy changes, it just grows. It feels calming. It’s a really nice thing for my mind, just in terms of living in New York and being fairly busy the last couple of years. It makes me feel like things are all right.