“Filming is different. You’re getting a moment right. You can go in and create something very good, very quickly. That’s a different challenge to having five, six weeks to rehearse a play.” – Lesley Manville
When asked if he treats Day-Lewis different from other actors that he works with, Anderson answered
“All my life, I’ve mouthed off about how I should stop acting, and I don’t know why it was different this time” – Daniel Day-Lewis
“You can’t afford for there to be gaps in your pool of knowledge when it comes to a character, otherwise what ends up onscreen is generalized and unspecific” – David Oyelowo
Playing a real person, on stage or screen, can be a burden of responsibility for even the most experienced actor.
Daniel Day-Lewis, Best Actor winner for Lincoln
Actor Stephen McKinsley Henderson has followed up his Tony-nominated role opposite Denzel Washington in the 2010 production of August Wilson’s Fences and long-running recurring role as judge on Law & Order with recent appearances in episodes of The Newsroom and a role in the highest profile film of his career, Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln.
It’s odd to see Daniel Day-Lewis so chatty during awards season to promote Lincoln because he isn’t known for doing many interviews in his career. But Day-Lewis has also been participating in various revealing Q&A sessions, including the Santa Barbara International Film Festival to receive the festival’s Montecito Award for his career achievements.
It’s given that Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln will win many Academy Awards. Not only did it score the most nominations, but it is the exact type of film that the Academy loves. And while it wouldn’t be a surprise to see masterful star (and Golden Globe winner) Daniel Day-Lewis get his third Oscar for his portrayal of Abraham Lincoln (and he would also becoming the first actor to win three Best Actor Oscars), he actually almost passed on the role because he thought he’d rather watch the movie than star in it.
Among the many familiar faces in Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln is Tommy Lee Jones. Jones plays Thaddeus Stevens, a Pennsylvania Republican congressman who helped end slavery in the United States.
James Spader might be best known for his television roles in Boston Legal and The Office, but Spader began his career in film. Though he’s only been in a handful of movies in the last decade, Spader plays a key role in Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln as William H. Bilbo, a committed abolitionist.
Starring in a Steven Spielberg film opposite Daniel Day-Lewis might be as close as it gets to a “dream role” for an actress, and for two-time Oscar winner Sally Field Abraham Lincoln’s wife Mary Todd in Spielberg’s Lincoln was a role she wasn’t going to accept being passed over for.
Sally Field fought to play Mary Todd Lincoln in Steven Spielberg’s biopic, Lincoln, so she was more than happy to do plenty of research in order to get the correct portrayal of the famous first lady.
There are few who would not agree that Daniel Day-Lewis is among the most talent actors in the world, and nearly ever role he appears in he is bound to be nominated for dozens of acting’s top awards. The same goes for Lincoln, in which Day-Lewis stars as the iconic American president in the final months of his life.
