Hollywood - Westerns - Daniel Day-Lewis - Movies - Motion Pictures - New York Times

EACH OF THE FIVE POINTS IS A FINGER. WHEN I CLOSE MY HAND, IT BECOMES A FIST. AND, IF I WISH, I CAN TURN IT AGAINST YOU: We really don't talk about Daniel Day-Lewis enough:

When he was accepted at drama school, he committed himself fully to acting, but Day-Lewis never gave up his interest in the process of honing a skill. For his films, at least initially, imagining the life of his characters often involves a kind of physical invention of their world. During “Last of the Mohicans,” 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. He was first attracted to “My Left Foot,” the story of Christy Brown, a man with cerebral palsy who became a renowned painter and writer in Ireland, by the opening scene of the script: Christy’s left foot puts a record on a turntable, there’s a skip and the foot picks the needle up and then puts it down again. “I knew it couldn’t be done,” Day-Lewis said, “and that intrigued me.” After weeks of practice and eight weeks spent with cerebral-palsy patients, Day-Lewis mastered the scene on the first take. For “There Will be Blood,” he studied the historic period for nearly two years and became comfortable with the tools of California oilmen circa 1900.

Is there an actor-slash-cobbler alive who does a better job picking and choosing his roles?