Daniel Day-Lewis takes his work extremely seriously, says Xan Brooks in the London Guardian. The famously intense actor knows no boundaries in throwing himself into his roles. He broke two ribs while contorting himself as a man with cerebral palsy in My Left Foot, and lived in the woods to get into character for The Last of the Mohicans. While making a film, he says, it’s easier for him to remain in character. “If you go to inordinate length to explore and discover and bring a world to life, it makes better sense to stay in that world rather than jump in and out of it, which I find exhausting and difficult. That way there isn’t the sense of rupture every time the camera stops.” Pretending to be someone else is “absurd,” he says, and he will only yield to that experience if the character grips him; he’s only made four films in a decade, rejecting dozens of scripts. When he does choose to be transformed, he holds nothing back. “I think it is about losing yourself in time. I suppose it’s like when painters begin to make marks on a canvas and then 24 hours later they’re still working and there’s no sense of the ticking clock and no sense of the self. The self takes care of itself through the work. And I find that intoxicating.”
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Create an account with the same email registered to your subscription to unlock access.
