Daniel Day Lewis has been in character as Abe Lincoln since March.
Variety‘s Jeff Sneider tweeted recently that the two-time Oscar-winning actor has not only maintained his “Lincoln accent” (ie. the U.S. president’s somewhat infamous high-pitched tone) since March 2011, but that Lewis’ actual name doesn’t even appear on the casting call sheet. Such an extreme method acting approach is quite typical of the man, whose previous attempts to “truly stay in character” including never getting out of his wheelchair while he worked on My Left Foot, living out in the wilderness while he prepared to star in The Last of the Mohicans, and listening to Eminem music in order to play Bill “The Butcher” Cutting in Gangs of New York (not even kidding on that last one).
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For those who haven’t been keeping up on Lincoln pre-production: the remainder of the film’s cast includes Sally Field, Tommy Lee Jones, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Jared Harris, Jackie Earl Haley, Lee Pace, David Strathairn, James Spader, Walter Goggins, John Hawkes, Hal Holbrook, David Costabile, and Tim Blake Nelson, among many others.
If that wasn’t a prestigious enough list of names for you – Spielberg’s Lincoln biopic was also scripted by Pulitzer Prize-winner Tony Kushner (Munich), based on an earlier draft by Oscar-nominee John Logan (Gladiator, Hugo). The whole basis for this project is the acclaimed non-fiction book “Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln” by Pulitzer Prize-winner Doris Kearns Goodwin. ‘Nuff said, right?
