Academy-Award winner Daniel
Day-Lewis (“My Left Foot,” “There Will Be Blood”) is also this year’s
Academy-award nominee frontrunner for his titular role in the Steven
Spielberg-directed movie “Lincoln.”
Daniel Day-Lewis stars in Steven Spielberg’s powerful drama, “Lincoln,” which
focuses on the last four months in the life of the 16th President of the United
States. During this pivotal period, Abraham Lincoln abolished slavery and ended
the Civil War that had ravaged the country and taken an estimated 750,000
lives. With an astonishing performance from Day-Lewis and masterful direction
by Spielberg, a portrait emerges of a political genius who was also a moral
visionary and a warm, compassionate man.
Daniel
Day-Lewis plays Abraham Lincoln, the far-sighted American president known as
‘The Great Emancipator’ and widely regarded as the most influential statesman
of the 19th century. Lincoln is determined to free the slaves, even if it
means prolonging the Civil War and Steven Spielberg’s momentous new film
delivers fresh and fascinating insights into the brilliant leader, explaining
how the path to emancipation was fraught with complexity.
“Lincoln”
explains how the President engages in backroom deals, patronage and political
machinations in order to secure the passage of the all-important 13th Amendment
to the Constitution of the United States, the measure that officially ended the
evils of human bondage. He directs the war effort toward the destruction of
slavery with insight and political mastery, deliberately prolonging the war and
delaying peace negotiations as he tries to build a bipartisan consensus in the
House of Representatives.
Bearing
a remarkable resemblance to the 16th President, Daniel Day-Lewis gives a
wonderfully measured and nuanced performance as Lincoln. With his impassioned
portrayal of abolitionist Thaddeus Stevens, Tommy Lee Jones offers up the
performance of a lifetime. Sally Field is equally impressive as Lincoln’s
highly intelligent but troubled wife, Mary Todd Lincoln. William Seward,
Lincoln’s former rival who becomes the President’s greatest supporter, is
masterfully played by David Strathairn. The formidably talented cast includes
Joseph Gordon Levitt, James Spader, Hal Holbrook, John Hawkes, Jackie Earle
Haley, Bruce McGill, Tim Blake Nelson, Joseph Cross, Jared Harris and Lee Pace.
Like
many people, Day-Lewis was initially familiar with Lincoln only in broad
strokes, mostly through speeches like The Gettysburg Address. “But as a human
being, I had little sense of him whatsoever until I began to learn,” he
says. The screenplay kicked off the learning process. “In a very rich
way, (screenwriter) Tony suggested the man through his intellect, his humor and
his melancholy, both domestically and in office. The contrast between those two
things is something that’s like food and drink to me. In Tony’s script you see
a man in that strange paradox of being both public and private.”
He
then undertook an intimate engagement with “Team of Rivals” from which the
movie was in part based as well as many other writings about and by Lincoln.
But this gave way to something more organic. “Doris’ book was a great
beginning,” Day-Lewis says. Another key to Lincoln became what Day-Lewis
calls “the rhythm of the man.” He explains: “He did everything at his own
pace and could only do it at his own pace. He needed to arrive at his decisive
conclusions by a logical process that he relied on. What looked to others like
inaction or paralysis was just the physical impression that he gave. In
his own mind he was traveling as he needed to do, through each step of the
process, after which he could see things clearly.”
Indeed,
production designer Rick Carter recalls a feeling of tumbling through time when
Day-Lewis first came to the set: “I haven’t gotten over the first time I
saw him,” muses Carter. “Daniel Day-Lewis was not who I saw in front of me. I
saw the man who was the President of the United States in 1865. I saw Abraham
Lincoln. I didn’t see any distinction or gap between them.”
“Lincoln”
opens February 20 in theaters from 20th Century Fox and DreamWorks
Pictures to be distributed by Warner Bros.
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