Daniel Michael Blake Day-Lewis is the only person in film
history to win the Oscar award for Best Actor three times. Born in
London, England, he is the second child of Cecil Day-Lewis (A.K.A. Nicholas Blake) (Poet Laureate of England) and his second wife, Jill Balcon...
His maternal grandfather was Sir Michael Balcon, an important figure in the history of British cinema, head of the famous Ealing Studios. His older sister, Tamasin Day-Lewis, is a documentarian.
Daniel was educated at Sevenoaks School in Kent,
which he despised, and the more progressive Bedales in Petersfield,
which he adored. He studied acting at the Bristol Old Vic School. Daniel
made his film debut in Domingo, maldito domingo
(1971), but then acted on stage with the Bristol Old Vic and Royal
Shakespeare Companies and did not appear on screen again until 1982,
when he landed his first adult role, a bit part in Gandhi (1982). He also appeared on British TV that year in Frost in May (1982) and How Many Miles to Babylon? (1982). Notable theatrical performances include Another Country (1982-83), Dracula (1984), and The Futurists (1986).
His first major supporting role in a feature film was in Motín a bordo (1984), quickly followed by Mi hermosa lavandería (1985) and Una habitación con vistas
(1985). The latter two films opened in New York on the same day,
offering audiences and critics evidence of his remarkable range and
establishing him as a major talent. The New York Film Critics named him
Best Supporting Actor for those performances. In 1986, he appeared on
stage in Richard Eyre's The Futurists and on television in Eyre's production of Screen Two: The Insurance Man (1986). He also had a small role in a British/French film, Nanou (1986). In 1987 he assumed leading-man status in Philip Kaufman's La insoportable levedad del ser (1988), followed by a comedic role in the unsuccessful Un señorito en Nueva York (1988). His brilliant performance as "Christy Brown" in Jim Sheridan's Mi pie izquierdo (1989) won him numerous awards, including The Academy Award for best actor.
He
returned to the stage to work again with Eyre, as Hamlet at the
National Theater, but was forced to leave the production close to the
end of its run because of exhaustion, and has not appeared on stage
since. He took a hiatus from film as well until 1992, when he starred in
El último mohicano (1992), a film that met with mixed reviews but was a great success at the box office. He worked with American director Martin Scorsese in La edad de la inocencia (1993) in 1994. Subsequently, he teamed again with Jim Sheridan to star in En el nombre del padre
(1993), a critically acclaimed performance that earned him another
Academy Award nomination. His next project was in the role of John
Proctor in father-in-law Arthur Miller's play El crisol (1996), directed by Nicholas Hytner.
- IMDb Mini Biography By: A. Nonymous
His maternal grandfather was Sir Michael Balcon, an important figure in the history of British cinema, head of the famous Ealing Studios. His older sister, Tamasin Day-Lewis, is a documentarian.
- IMDb Mini Biography By: A. Nonymous
Spouse
| Rebecca Miller | (13 November 1996 - present) (2 children) |
Trade Mark
In-depth and exhaustive preparations for roles
Frequently collaborates with directors Jim Sheridan and Martin Scorsese.
His skill with accents
His characters are often deeply unsympathetic
Rich dramatic voice
Dramatic emotional performances
Hoop earrings
Renown for his eloquent acceptance speeches
Is very selective in his role choices
Trivia
Ranked #25 in Empire (UK) magazine's "The Top 100 Movie Stars of All Time" list. [October 1997]
Moving to County Wicklow, Ireland, he assumed Irish citizenship.
Was in a relationship with Isabelle Adjani from 1989 to 1994; they had one son together.
Younger brother of Tamasin Day-Lewis.
Chosen by People magazine as one of the "50 Most Beautiful People" in the world.
Chosen by Empire magazine as one of the "100 Sexiest Stars" in film history (#11).
Several times offered and turned down the role of Aragorn (Strider) in Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings film trilogy.
Son-in-law of playwright Arthur Miller.
Describes himself as "a lifelong study of evasion."
According to Gangs of New York (2002) co-star John C. Reilly,
he got sick during shooting in Italy, refusing to trade his character's
threadbare coat for a warmer coat because the warmer coat did not exist
in the 19th century; doctors finally forced him to take antibiotics.
Chosen by People magazine as one of the "50 Most Beautiful People" in the world.
Is a skilled woodworker in addition to being able to make his living as a cobbler.
He listened to Eminem to get into an angry, self-righteous frame of mind as Bill the Butcher while shooting Gangs of New York (2002).
He was the first of three consecutive British actors to win the Oscar for Best Actor in a leading role, Jeremy Irons being next and Anthony Hopkins the third. Each of them coincidentally won at their first nomination in the Academy Awards.
In El crisol (1996) Joan Allen plays his wife. In The Boxer (1997) Emily Watson plays his wife. Both have played Reba McLain. Allen played the part in Hunter (1986), Watson played the part in the remake, El dragón rojo (2002).
Frequently called the "English Robert De Niro." Early in his career, Day-Lewis recently referred to De Niro as his champion.
Considered doing an adaptation of "Rose and the Snake" in the early 1990s, but the project fell through. After marrying Rebecca Miller, she convinced him to take the lead role and directed him in the adaptation The Ballad of Jack and Rose (2005).
After Michael Madsen was found to be unavailable for the part, Day-Lewis tried to get the role of Vincent Vega in Pulp Fiction (1994), one of the few times he actively pursued a part. However, by that point in the casting, Quentin Tarantino had John Travolta in mind for the part.
While filming Gangs of New York
(2002) he rarely got out of character and would talk with a New York
accent the whole day and would be sharpening his knives at lunch.
His performance as Christy Brown in Mi pie izquierdo (1989) is ranked #11 on Premiere Magazine's 100 Greatest Performances of All Time (2006).
His performance as Bill "The Butcher" Cutting in Gangs of New York (2002) is ranked #53 on Premiere Magazine's 100 Greatest Performances of All Time (2006).
Grandson of Michael Balcon.
Appears in the novel "That Must Be Yoshino".
Turned down leading role of Steven Soderbergh film Solaris (2002). The role instead went to George Clooney.
While filming The Ballad of Jack and Rose (2005) on Prince Edward Island, Canada, Day-Lewis lived alone in a hut on the beach, away from his wife, director Rebecca Miller, and their children.
Late in the run of the 1989 production of Hamlet at the National
Theatre in London, he reported that he had a strange sensation that he
was talking to his father, who died of pancreatic cancer when Daniel was
15.
Unnerved, he walked off the stage and never returned. He still
doesn't like to talk about it.
During El último mohicano
(1992) he built a canoe, learned to track and skin animals, and
perfected the use of a 12-pound flintlock gun, which he took everywhere
he went, even to a Christmas dinner.
Dedicated his 2008 SAG Award to Heath Ledger who was one of his favorite actors.
Holds dual citizenship - British and Irish.
Was director Alex Cox's second choice for the role of Sid Vicious in Sid y Nancy (1986). Gary Oldman got the part.
Supports Millwall Football Club.
Owns homes in the US and Ireland.
Got to know his future wife Rebecca Miller while working on the film version of her father Arthur Miller's play "The Crucible".
The first Non-American actor to win three Academy Awards for Best
Actor. He is also the first actor anywhere to win three Oscars in that
category. 2013's Oscar for Lincoln wins him his 3rd Academy award.
Dedicated his 2008 Oscar to his grandfather, film studio boss Michael Balcon, his poet father Nicholas Blake (aka Cecil Day-Lewis), and his three sons Gabriel-Kane Day-Lewis (born on 9 April 1995), Ronan Cal Day-Lewis (born on 14 June 1998) and Cashel Blake Day-Lewis (born in May 2002).
Mi hermosa lavandería (1985) and Una habitación con vistas
(1985) both opened in New York on the same day, March 7, 1986. Both
movies featured Day-Lewis in prominent and very different roles: in Una habitación con vistas (1985) he played a repressed, snobbish Edwardian upperclassman, while in Mi hermosa lavandería
(1985), he played a lower-class, gay, ex-skinhead in love with an
ambitious Pakistani businessman in Thatcher's London.
When American
critics saw Day-Lewis, who was then virtually unknown in the U.S., in
two such different roles on the same day, many (including Roger Ebert of The Chicago Sun-Times and Vincent Canby of The New York Times) raved about the talent it must have taken him to play such vastly different characters.
Is one of 8 actors to have won the Academy Award, BAFTA Award,
Critics' Choice Award, Golden Globe Award and SAG Award for the same
performance. The others in chronological order are Geoffrey Rush for Shine (1996), Jamie Foxx for Ray (2004), Philip Seymour Hoffman for Truman Capote (2005), Forest Whitaker for El último rey de Escocia (2006), Javier Bardem for No es país para viejos (2007), Heath Ledger for El caballero oscuro (2008), Christoph Waltz for Malditos bastardos (2009) and 'Colin Firth' for The King's Speech.
Son-in-law of photographer Inge Morath and playwright Arthur Miller.
His performance as "Daniel Plainview" in Pozos de ambición (2007) was listed as third in TotalFilm's "150 Greatest Movie Performances of All Time" (Dec 2009).
Turned down a role in Terminator Salvation (2009).
Zack Snyder offered him the role of "Jor-El" in Superman: El hombre de acero (2013).
Turned down the lead role in Mary Reilly (1996).
Sir John Gielgud said that "he had what every actor in Hollywood wants: talent. And what every actor in England wants: looks".
Turned down the lead role in El paciente inglés (1996).
Turned down the role of "Simon Templar" in El santo (1997).
Turned down the lead role in a film based on mass murderer Dennis Nilsen.
He originally decided to become a cabinet maker but was not accepted for an apprenticeship.
His father was of Northern Irish and English descent. His mother
was from a Jewish family that emigrated to the U.K. from Poland and
Latvia.
He first became interested in acting when he learned to replicate
the accent and mannerisms of people in his neighborhood to avoid
standing out to bullies.
Is the second actor to have received a Best Actor Oscar nomination for portraying Abraham Lincoln; the other is Raymond Massey in Lincoln en Illinois (1940).
Is one of 5 actors to have won the Academy Award 3 times in their career; the others in chronological order are Walter Brennan, Ingrid Bergman, Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep. These actors have only been surpassed by Katharine Hepburn, who won the Academy Award 4 times during her career.
Dedicated his 2013 Best Actor Oscar to his late mother, actress Jill Balcon.
He is the only actor to win an Academy Award for performing in a Steven Spielberg movie.
On March 19, 2013, a two-DVD set entitled "Daniel Day-Lewis Triple
Feature", a compilation of much of the actor's performances on British
TV programs from 1982 to 1986, was released in the U.S. by BBC Home
Entertainment.
In May 2013 he received an honorary degree from the Julliard School.
He partook in the 2013 Millie Miglia driving a 1953 Jaguar XK 120.
His co-driver was Jim Gianopulos the Chairman and CEO of Fox Filmed
Entertainment.
In 2013 he organized for the international premiere of his film
Lincoln to occur in Ireland as a fund-raiser for the Wicklow Hospice
Foundation.
Became a father for the 1st time at age 37 when his ex-girlfriend Isabelle Adjani gave birth to their son Gabriel-Kane Day-Lewis on April 9, 1995.
Became a father for the 3rd time at age 45 when his wife Rebecca Miller gave birth to their son Cashel Blake Day-Lewis in May 2002.
In the movie Gangs of New York
(2002), Daniel Day-Lewis's character "The Butcher" throws a knife at a
picture of President Abraham Lincoln hitting him right between the eyes.
Ten years later, Daniel Day-Lewis starred in Steven Spielberg's Lincoln (2012) playing the president himself.
He is not only the first actor to win 3 Best Actor Oscars, but the only British Actor to win at least 2 Best Actor Oscars.
Personal Quotes
(on acting) "If I weren't allowed this outlet, there wouldn't be a place for me in society."
I suppose I have a highly developed capacity for self-delusion, so it's no problem for me to believe I'm somebody else.
[on whether or not he will act in films more often in the future:] "Nothing happened over the course of making Gangs of New York (2002) that made me think, 'Why don't I do this more often?'"
In every actor's life, there is a moment when they ask themselves, 'Is it really seemly for me to still be doing this?'
Life comes first. What I see in the characters, I first try to see in life.
The West has always been the epicenter of possibility. One of the
ways we forge against mortality is to head west. It's to do with
catching the sun before it slips behind the horizon. We all keep moving
toward the sun, wishing to get the last ray of hope before it sets.
On disengaging from a character after filming: "There's a terrible
sadness. The last day of shooting is surreal. Your mind, your body,
your spirit are not in any way prepared to accept that this experience
is coming to an end. In the months that follow the finish of a film, you
feel profound emptiness. You've devoted so much of your time to
unleashing, in an unconscious way, some sort of spiritual turmoil, and
even if it's uncomfortable, no part of you wishes to leave that
character behind. The sense of bereavement is such that it can take
years before you can put it to rest.
(on seeing his face in Hollywood posters for El último mohicano
(1992)) That was, and will always be, difficult for me.
The work itself
is never anything but pure pleasure, but there's an awful lot of
peripheral stuff that I find it hard to be surrounded by. I like things
to be swift, because the energy you have is concentrated and can be
fleeting. The great machinery of film can work against that. I have
never had a positive reaction to all the stuff that supposedly promotes
the film. The thought of it will make me hesitate to do any films at
all.
(on learning to box for The Boxer
(1997)) I wanted to see if I loved the sport, because if I didn't love
the sport, I wouldn't want to tell the story. At its best, boxing is
very pure. It requires resilience and heart and self-belief even after
it's been knocked out of you. It's a certain kind of a test. And it's
hard: the training alone will kill you. And that's before people start
giving you a dig.
(after filming La insoportable levedad del ser
(1988)) I was hopelessly at sea. I was extremely unhappy most of the
time. I think I probably felt I'd made a fundamental error in agreeing
to do that movie even though it was the part and the film that everyone
wanted to do. And God help us, that is, in itself, a reason not to do
something.
(while filming Mi pie izquierdo
(1989)) I needed - and I still need - to create a particular
environment. I need to find the right kind of silence or light or noise.
Whatever is necessary - and it is always different.
I know it sounds a
little fussy and a little ridiculous, but finding your own rhythm is one
of the most important things you can discover about yourself. And you
have to observe it. As actors, we're all encouraged to feel that each
job is the last job. They plant some little electrode in your head at an
early stage and you think, Be grateful, be grateful, be grateful. So,
it's not without a sense of gratitude that I work. But I couldn't do
this work at all unless I did it in my own rhythm. It became a choice
between stopping and taking the time I needed.
Why would I want to play middle-aged middle-class Englishmen?
[T]here's a quality of wildness that exists in Ireland that coincides with utter solitude.
I've managed to create a sense of banishment in so many different
areas of my life. I live in Ireland, not England. I make films in
America. And now I'm banished from the theater because I've slagged it
off so much. And I did the unspeakable thing of fleeing from 'Hamlet.'
Laurence Olivier
might have been a much better actor on film if he hadn't had that
flippant attitude. [He] was a remarkable actor, but he was entirely
missing the point consistently. He felt that film was an inferior form.
[on working as a teen-age extra in Domingo, maldito domingo
(1971)] I was just a local kid. I got to come out of the church, the
same church where I sang in the choir, and scratch up a row of cars - a
Jag, a Bentley - parked in front. I thought, I get paid for this! Years
later, I saw the director, John Schlesinger, at the Edinburgh festival, where we were showing Mi hermosa lavandería (1985). I play a hooligan punk in that too. I said to [John] Schlesinger, 'I guess I haven't progressed much.'
(on visiting the west of Ireland every year since childhood) From
the day we arrived here, my sense of Ireland's importance has never
diminished. Everything here seemed exotic to us. Just the sound of the
west of Ireland in a person's voice can affect me deeply.
(on researching his role as Plainview in Pozos de ambición
(2007)) I like to learn about things. It was just a great time trying
to conceive of the impossibility of that thing. I didn't know anything
about mining at the turn of the century in America. My boarding school
in Kent didn't exactly teach that.
(on researching his role as Plainview in Pozos de ambición
(2007)) I read a lot of correspondence dating from that period. Decent
middle-class lives with wives and children were abandoned to pursue this
elusive possibility.
They were bank clerks and shipping agents and
teachers. They all fled West for a sniff of cheap money. And they made
it up as they went along. No one knew how to drill for oil. Initially,
they scooped it out of the ground in saucepans. It was man at his most
animalistic, sifting through filth to find bright, sparkly things.
(replying to a compliment on his articulation) I am more greatly
moved by people who struggle to express themselves. Maybe it's a
middle-class British hang-up, but I prefer the abstract concept of
incoherence in the face of great feeling to beautiful, full sentences
that convey little emotion.
(on applying to theater school, the Bristol Old Vic) I picked just
one because then it would be a sign from the gods if it was not meant
to be.
(on his reluctance to expose the mechanics of his acting process)
It's not that I want to pull the shutters down. It's just that people
have such a misconception about what it is I do. They think the
character comes from staying in the wheelchair or being locked in the
jail or whatever extravagant thing they choose to focus their fantasies
on. Somehow, it always seems to have a self-flagellatory aspect to it.
But that's just the superficial stuff. Most of the movies that I do are
leading me toward a life that is utterly mysterious to me. My chief goal
is to find a way to make that life meaningful to other people.
I was deeply unsettled by the script [of Pozos de ambición
(2007)]. For me, that is a sure sign. If you remain unsettled by a
piece of writing, it means you are not watching the story from the
outside; you've already taken a step toward it. When I'm drawn to
something, I take a resolute step backward, and I ask myself if I can
really serve this story as well as it needs to be served. If I don't
think I can do that, no matter how appealing, I will decline. What
finally takes over, what took over with this movie, is an illusion of
inevitability. I think: Can this really be true? Is this happening to me
again? Is there no way to avoid this?
My love for American movies was like a secret that I carried
around with me. I always knew I could straddle different worlds. I'd
grown up in two different worlds and if you can grow up in two different
worlds, you can occupy four. Or six. Why put a limit on it?
I used to go to all-night screenings of (Clint Eastwood)'s movies. I'd stagger out at 5 in the morning, trying to be loose-limbed and mean and taciturn.
Where I come from, it was a heresy to say you wanted to be in
movies, leave alone American movies. We were all encouraged to believe
that the classics of the theater were the fiery hoops through which
you'd have to pass if you were going to have any self-esteem as a
performer. It never occurred to me that that was the case. One of the
great privileges of having grown up in a middle-class literary English
household, but having gone to school in the front lines in Southeast
London, was that I became half-street-urchin and half-good-boy at home. I
knew that dichotomy was possible. England is obsessed with where you
came from, and they are determined to keep you in that place, be it in a
drawing room or in the gutter. The great tradition of liberalism in
England is essentially a sponge that absorbs all possibility of change.
America looked different to me: the idea of America as a place of
infinite possibilities was defined for me through the movies. I'm glad I
did the classical work that I did, but it just wasn't for me. I'm a
little bit perverse, and I just hate doing the thing that's the most
obvious.
I saw Taxi Driver
(1976) five or six times in the first week, and I was astonished by its
sheer visceral beauty. I just kept going back - I didn't know America,
but that was a glimpse of what America might be, and I realized that,
contrary to expectation, I wanted to tell American stories.
I don't particularly like westerns as a genre, but I do love certain westerns. Solo ante el peligro (1952) means a lot to me - I love the purity and the honesty, I love Gary Cooper in that film, the idea of the last man standing. I do not like John Wayne: I find it hard to watch him. I just never took to him. And I don't like James Stewart as a cowboy. I love him, but just not as a cowboy; Caballero sin espada (1939) is one of my favorite films. I love Frank Capra. I love Preston Sturges. But we're talking about westerns. ... I have always admired Clint Eastwood's westerns. The spaghetti westerns were a great discovery. And El jinete pálido (1985). As a child, the John Ford film El gran combate (1964) made a big impression on me. And Mi vida es mi vida (1970). It's not really a western, but it is about the possibilities that can be found in the West. Jack Nicholson
is sublime in that film, just sublime. It's the most stultifying
portrait of middle-class life. You want to flee from that world and head
anywhere less civilized. Which is, of course, the appeal of the West:
It's not tamed yet.
[on creating a characterization] The intention is always the same.
To try to discover life in its entirety, or at least create for
yourself the illusion that you have, which might give you some chance of
convincing other people of it. It's the same thing each time, but it
requires totally different work in the process of achieving that. You
are set on a path that's strewn with obstacles, but getting over them is
the joy of the work. So it's impossible to think in terms of
difficulty: it all seems utterly impossible, but the pleasure is in
trying to forge ahead anyway.
My ambition for many years was to be involved in work that was
utterly compelling to me, regardless of the consequences. But I worried a
lot as a young man about where such and such a thing might take me;
you're encouraged to think that way. You're supposed to build a career
for yourself. But there's no part of me that was able to do that. And
thank God I was able to recognize it before I sort of went grey with
anxiety.
For my sense of continuity, I suppose I work in a certain way. But
it goes beyond that. It's really about the sense of joy you have in
having worked hard to imagine and discover and - one hopes - to create a
world, an illusion of a world that other people might believe in
because you believe in it yourself, a form of self-delusion. After
achieving that, it seems far crazier to jump in and out of that world
that you've gone to such pains to create. And it wouldn't be my wish to
do that, because I enjoy being in there. - On why he takes long breaks
between films.
Whenever we reach what we think are the boundaries of our
endurance, you know ten minutes later you're thinking: I could have done
that - like in any athletic pursuit - I could have gone further than
that; I could have jumped higher.
I am rather surprised that I haven't made more stories about my
own country but it is a mistake to suggest that the biggest influence on
my life in terms of movies has been America. It was and remains Ken
Loach and his whole body of work, not that I have ever worked with him.
There is something unique and pure about the way he works, without a
taint on it. His beliefs have remained unwavering since he made Cathy
Come Home.
I do have dual citizenship, but I think of England as my country. I
miss London very much but I couldn't live there because there came a
time when I needed to be private and was forced to be public by the
press. I couldn't deal with it.
I was very influenced by Ken Loach's work from the moment I saw Kes (1969) when I was a kid. It still remains for me one of the most powerful pieces of work ever. Before that, there was Sábado noche, domingo mañana (1960), El ingenuo salvaje (1963) and La soledad del corredor de fondo
(1962), which all expressed a new British social realism. Undoubtedly,
they opened up the possibility of examining British life in a new way.
That was probably the most important film experience I had.
I have no illusion about the fact that I'm an Englishman living in
Ireland. Even though I do straddle both worlds and I'm very proud to be
able to carry both passports. But I do know where I come from. I
particularly miss south-east London - the front-lines of Deptford and
Lewisham and New Cross and Charlton - because that's my patch.
[on accepting the best actor Oscar for Pozos de ambición (2007)] This sprang like a sapling out of the mad, beautiful head of Paul Thomas Anderson.
Initially it was invigorating. People suddenly wanted to hear my
views on all manner of social problems. I was up for it but it palled
very soon afterwards. It was not like real conversation where you listen
and learn. It's hard to learn anything when you are talking about it.
You only learn doing it. And if you are not learning, what's the point? -
on the "wisdom" of actors as public figures.
Theatre invites a nuts and bolts process to rehearsing in which
all the actors are transparent to each other. For me, even if the truth I
am looking for might be a specious one, I still need to believe in a
kernel of truth. And I find it hard to do in a rehearsal situation where
everyone is saying, "Are you going to do it like that?" It is
distracting and deadly in the end to any discovery you might make. I'm
never far away from a sense of potential absurdity of what I am doing,
and maybe as I get older I have to work harder and harder to obliterate
it. That's maybe why I seem to take it far too seriously.
Thank you. I'm very, very proud of this. Thank you so much for
giving it to me. And I'm very proud to be included in that group of
wonderful actors this year. You know, for as long as I can remember, the
thing that gave me a sense of wonderment, of renewal, the thing that
teased me with the question, how is such a thing possible, and then dare
you to go back into the arena of one more time, with longing and
self-doubt, jostling in the balance. It's always been the work of other
actors, and there are many actors in this room tonight, including my
fellow nominees who have given that sense of regeneration and Heath Ledger gave it to me. In Monster's Ball
(2001), that character that he created, it seemed to be almost like an
unformed being, retreating from themselves, retreating from his father,
from his life, even retreating from us, and yet we wanted to follow him,
and yet we're scared to follow him almost. It was unique. And then, of
course, in Brokeback Mountain
(2005), he was unique, he was perfect. And that scene in the trailer at
the end of the film is as moving as anything that I think I've ever
seen. And I'd like to dedicate this to Heath Ledger. So, thank you very
much. Thank you so much (Acceptance speech for Best Actor In A Leading
Role SAG award for Pozos de ambición (2007).
(On choosing film roles) I begin with a sense of mystery. In other
words, I am intrigued by a life that seems very far removed from my
own. And I have a sense of curiosity to discover that life and maybe
change places with it for a while.
[About Heath Ledger]
As much as I was glad to have a chance to say something in that moment.
There was plenty more I could say but we're not just fueling a fire
that's already out of control. His family, for instance, at this moment
are trying to suffer that unimaginable grief in the full scrutiny of a
fucking circus and anything that I say is probably going to contribute
even more to that and keep the story running and running and running.
There will come a time eventually when people just remember that he was a
beautiful man who did some wonderful work and we would have seen great
things from him. Right now I can't say that I'm too enthusiastic about
just adding more fodder to what is already a horrendously, obscenely
overblown machine that's gathered around his death. It's horrible.
([n the passing of Pete Postlethwaite]:
Pos was the one. As students, it was him we went to see on stage time
and time again. It was him we wanted to be like; wild and true;
lion-hearted; unselfconscious, irreverent. He was on our side. He
watched out for us. We loved him and followed him like happy children,
never a breath away from laughter. He shouldn't have gone. I wish so
much that he hadn't. There's a tendency to make lists at this time of
the year. When we get to the Best of British, if Pete isn't at the top
of that list, he shouldn't be far from it.
[on the rumors surrounding his acting process]: Certainly in
England I think they prefer to believe that I'm stone mad. That's how
they account for all my eccentric behavior. But I always feel as if that
has been largely misrepresented, the details that have been singled
out...People are fascinated by the peripheral details. But that's not
where the principal work takes place, obviously. That takes place either
inside you, or it doesn't happen at all. It's your own life that
breathes itself into and through the character. But people prefer to
dwell on the stuff that appears on the face of it to be some form of
self-flagellation. And for me, everything is part of the joy of
discovering this life - that one is trying to inform as well as
satisfying an irresistible curiosity. So it's the pleasure in learning
that has always been the prevailing feeling for me. And yet consistently
it's represented as this tortured thing.
Interviews are God's great joke on me.
I like to take a long time over things, and I believe that it's
the time spent away from the work that allows me to do the work itself.
If you're lurching from from one film set or one theater to the other,
I'm not sure what your resources would be as a human being.
I became conflicted in my late teens. I imagined an alternative
life as a furniture maker. For about a year I just didn't know what to
do. I did laboring jobs - working in the docks, construction sites. When
I did make the decision to focus on acting, I think my mother was just
relieved for me that I had finally started to focus. She probably feared
for me much more than she ever let on, because all I got from her, no
matter what I was doing was encouragement - so much so that I think I
became quite a harsh judge of myself to try to restore some kind of
balance.
[on the United States] I probably do have a greater fascination
for the history of this country than I do for my own. I date that back
to the moment that Michael Mann invited me to do 'The Last of the
Mohicans'. I hedged my bets for a long time because I thought, 'Why? Why
would he want to do that'. Eventually I thought, 'Well, if he's willing
to take that chance, who am I to say no?'.
[on events in America, 2012] I think a lot about what President
Obama is going through at this moment. I look to the extent to which he
has aged visibly. I feel I aged visibly just playing [President
Lincoln], so to actually have that responsibility is a burden that one
can only explore in one's imagination. Anyone who has that position of
authority must necessarily find themselves very, very alone at certain
times. I'm not in any way comparing his work to the work that I do as an
actor, but it's a common theme.
I'm woefully one-track-minded. Without sounding unhinged, I know
I'm not Abraham Lincoln. I'm aware of that. But the truth is the entire
game is about creating an illusion, and for whatever reason, and mad as
it may sound, some part of me can allow myself to believe for a period
for time without questioning, and that's the trick. Maybe it's a
terrible revelation about myself that one does feel able to do that.
[on playing Abraham Lincoln] I thought this is a very, very bad
idea. But by that time it was too late. I had already been drawn into
Lincoln's orbit. He has a very powerful orbit, which is interesting
because we tend to hold him at such a distance. He's been mythologized
almost to the point of dehumanization. But when you begin to approach
him, he almost instantly becomes welcoming and accessible, the way he
was in life.
[on photos of Abraham Lincoln by Alexander Gardner] I looked at
them the way you sometimes look at your own reflection in a mirror and
wonder who that person is looking back at you.
I never, ever felt that depth of love for another human being that
I never met. And that's, I think, probably the effect that Lincoln has
on most people that take the time to discover him... I wish he had
stayed [with me] forever.
[accepting the Best Actor award at SAG, 2013] It occurred to me -
it was an actor that murdered Abraham Lincoln. And therefore, somehow it
is only so fitting that every now and then an actor tries to bring him
back to life again.
[on being presented the 2013 Best Actor Oscar by Meryl Streep] It's strange because three years ago, before we decided to do a straight swap, I had actually been committed to play Margaret Thatcher and Meryl was Steven Spielberg's first choice for Lincoln. I'd have liked to see that version.
Since we got married sixteen years ago, my wife Rebecca [Miller]
has lived with some very strange men. But luckily, she's the versatile
one in the family and she's been the perfect companion to all of them.
I miss playing Lincoln. Very much. I miss the proximity to his
character. There was a time in my life when it wasn't clear whether or
not I would amount to anything. I was fearful about my future. In
England, people were hell-bent on certifying me -- to them, the way I
work as an actor is the system of someone who is unhinged. As a young
man, when I saw the early movies by Martin Scorsese, I saw a way to be, a kind of liberation. In those movies, America seemed like a place of infinite opportunities. In Lincoln (2012), we tried to show that sense of grand democratic possibility. We created a world I didn't want to leave.
Salary
| The Crucible (1996) | $8.000.000 |
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