The Envelope: Video chat: Paul Dano discusses his turn as famed singer-songwriter Brian Wilson in ‘Love & Mercy’

As young Beach Boy Brian Wilson in “Love & Mercy,” Paul Dano sang, gained weight and experienced the onset of mental illness. Things shouldn’t be quite as hard on the actor on Monday when he stops by the Los Angeles Times for a live video chat. At 12 p.m. PT, Dano will be here to discuss his turn as the famed singer-songwriter, and how he portrayed him for only half the film.

Dividing the film between Dano as young Wilson and John Cusack as the older, troubled Wilson created a harmony of sorts between the aspects of Wilson’s life, using the music to “tell the story in a way that it can still go down smooth, like the songs, but is also complicated, structurally, like the songs,” Dano told The Times last month.

We’ll ask Dano, whose work in the film could earn him some awards recognition, about gaining that weight, working as a child actor and, possibly, about his girlfriend, writer-actress Zoe Kazan. If you have questions for Dano, leave them in the Comments section or tweet us using the hashtag #askLATimes.