by
Paul Fischer
Much has been written about the often-peculiar antics of
Daniel Day-Lewis. One of 
the
most respected and acclaimed actors of his generation, his obsessive attention
to detail in approaching a role is legendary, not to mention his sudden
desire to disappear from the profession for five years, have labeled him
a bit mad by the British press. Mad or not, Day-Lewis, his head shaved
and wearing an oversized green knitted sweater and jeans, laughs at the
label. At the same time, Day-Lewis happily believes that "because
once they [the British media] decide something, that's it. Falsehood becomes
rumor becomes fact in the time it takes to spit it out in that place,"
he says with a hint of disdain. "I'm from that country so it's not
like I don't know what the game is, but who does like that who isn't involved
in it directly? It's hateful and just very misleading. I probably gave
a few interviews early on when I didn't know any better and talked about
some of the crazy things I did as a kid, but who didn't? So that's the
beginning, and then I leave the stage during Hamlet and all of a sudden
you become a crazy person." The actor has consistently refused to
divulge what he has been up to during his lengthy hiatus. Even on recent
talk shows, he avoided dealing with the question. "I'm an expert
on evasion," laughs Day-Lewis.
But it was Martin Scorsese who ultimately persuaded the actor to return to acting in the role of a leader of Native Americans gang, in the director's often ferocious epic drama Gangs of New York. "Martin just talked to me," Day-Lewis explains when asked how the director persuaded the actor to return from his self-imposed exile from the screen. Of course, Scorsese had to find him first. "I had called Harvey [Weinstein] about trying to get some money from him to help finance my wife's film and he mentioned Marty was looking for me." That simple. Harvey didn't end up giving him the money, but ended up starring in Scorsese's latest opus "so it turned out OK in the end."
Scorsese's epic drama set in mid-nineteenth century New
York revolves around the racially fueled battles between the so-called
native New Yorkers and the Irish immigrants who were flooding the city
at the time. Day-Lewis felt strongly about seeing this story unfold on
the screen, "because personally, I found it fascinating and appealed
to me in a particular way." He says it was for "personal and
selfish reasons" that the actor was ultimately drawn to this material.
"If audiences are able to get a broader meaning from it other than
the sheer pleasure of seeing a good film, then that's wonderful. Day-Lewis
is an actor with a reputation for total immersion in a role, and this
latest character is no exception. But try and get the actor to reveal
more about his process and he does his best to skirt the subject. In approaching
this character, Day-Lewis merely admits, "That I go through things
in my usual dogged way which I think is the same in every case,"
Day-Lewis says. "What you're looking for is always different but
finally it's something inside of yourself. The details are neither here
nor there of the skills that you learn along the way but it's always the
same thing, which is to create, for yourself, by whatever means, the illusion
that you're experiencing the world through a different sensibility or
pair of
eyes."
Even when trying to get the actor to talk about the accent for this role proves futile. "It's all part of the same thing; I'm loath to dismember the corpse, because it's part of the illusion. Obviously it's something you have to work on, and mostly you're working on it in relative isolation and just trying to find something which feels to me, as if it's emerging from the entirety of the thing that you're doing, otherwise all those details become ‘stuff' that you're sticking on." The actor says that he also hates talking about the methodical preparation he undergoes when taking on a role, "because the venture we're involved with is a venture of insanity and trying to make a film is a kind of madness. The work that I do, to try and convince somebody that I'm someone else, is a strange thing to do, right? So what possible preparation could be stranger than the thing itself, to arrive at that? Lying in a trailer making phone calls to your business manager would seem crazy to me, not pretending you're somebody else," says Day-Lewis.
Asked what it was about this character that the actor found
fascinating to put himself through such a complex process, Day Lewis says
"everything". Which aspects, one insists? "No
aspects. It's the full complexity of something which always makes it interesting
rather than isolated details," Day-Lewis explains. Yet his preparation
to immerse himself into this character was often overshadowed by the enormity
of the film, coupled with dealing with his own performance. It is surprising
to note that even an actor of Day-Lewis' prominence, is often plagued
with self-doubt, "because even though you know what you
are trying to achieve, when you're in the middle of something, you're
all involved in the same madness, and certainly in MY position, you have
to be completely unobjective about it. That means you don't know
whether you're getting there, if what's happening is right or wrong; it's
very hard to have a sense of that."
Five years returning to the craft he had temporarily left
behind, left the actor both energized as well as feeling he had never
left, he says. "I think it was energizing because of the time I was
able to take off and it was also as if I'd never left, in both the good
and the bad sense," laughs the actor. Day-Lewis won't confirm whether
he would allow another five years to pass before we see him on screen
again. "I can't say that I wouldn't but I never originally set out
to let five years pass but I never set out to do that originally. I've
only been reminded constantly in the last few days that had been
away," admits the actor. "I don't want to seem obtuse about
it, because I was just too happy to be involved in other things. I didn't
set out to let five years pass but rather to indulge my curiosity in other
things, not just to get away from this work." Day-Lewis
steadfastly refuses to elaborate. "Different things" is how
he says he whiled away the time. Aside from acting he takes pleasure in
doing "many things". That does include acting, despite the odd
absence. The actor, who has appeared in some of the most diverse films
of the past two decades, is not one to look back at his own work, but
admits that everything he has done holds a place in his heart. "I
feel a great deal of affection in different ways for all the
work that I've been involved in, because each 'thing' is a life unto itself
and an important
part of your life."