DEC 28
A villain who fits the
bill
He was so good at
being bad in Gangs Of New York that Leonardo DiCaprio was said to have been
terrified of him. And it's no wonder, for Daniel Day-Lewis throws himself into
his roles
By Ong Soh Chin
ON A WINTER'S day, Daniel
Day-Lewis strides into a roomful of journalists at a New York hotel, sporting a
beaming smile that is enough to melt the snow outside the window.
It is a disarmingly warm
gesture. After all, the man, infamously intense, is known for being somewhat
cagey and withdrawn with journalists.
But here he is in the
flesh, getting comfy in his chair and shedding a shockingly colourful patchwork
jacket that drowns out the drab blacks and greys of everybody else's
predictable December wardrobe.
His head is shaven, with
a hint of growth peeking out. His liquid eyes are heart-stoppingly expressive.
When he smiles, the eyes twinkle.
He is here to talk about
Gangs Of New York. His performance in Martin Scorsese's epic - as the villain
Bill The Butcher - is so vibrant and powerful, it practically leaps out from
the screen and grabs you by the throat.
He has already picked up
Best Actor awards from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association and the New
York Film Critics Circle Prize for the role.
There is also talk that
he could pick up a Best Actor Oscar. If he does, it will be his second, after
winning for 1990's My Left Foot.
Unlike some of his peers
who approach acting with a cold workman-like attitude, churning out
cringeworthy commercial stuff as well as serious movies (Ralph Fiennes comes to
mind), Day-Lewis has never been known to be a dilettante or a mercenary.
As proof, it has been
five years since audiences last saw him onscreen, in The Boxer, prompting one
to ask why he took so long to come back and to agree to be in Scorsese's
picture.
'I needed to feel or
understand that I would be able to make a contribution to Martin and that took
a while to be sure of,' he says in measured tones, offering each word carefully
like a thoughtfully polished jewel.
'I mean you can't ever be
sure, but if you don't go into something wholeheartedly, there's no chance
you're going to sustain yourself or anybody else through that period of time.'
This wholeheartedness is,
indeed, a Day-Lewis trademark.
Sometimes called the
British Robert De Niro, the 45-year-old is known for his intense dedication to
a role, which usually makes him stay in character in between takes and off the
set.
To prepare for his role
in Gangs, he spent some time working in a butcher shop in London, learning how
to cut meat.
Previously, he had locked
himself in a tin hut for hours in order to portray a prisoner in In The Name Of
The Father. He then had people bang on the outside with iron bars in order to
adopt a prisoner's frame of mind.
The larger-than-life
villain he plays in Gangs apparently spilled over off the set as well. Co-star
Leonardo DiCaprio was rumoured to have been terrified of him and Day-Lewis
apparently apologised to the Titanic star for his behaviour at the film's wrap
party.
During the eight months
of shooting at Rome's famous Cinecitta studios, where a 1.5-sq mile set of old
New York was recreated, Day-Lewis stayed away from the Italian capital because
it had nothing to do with his role.
He says: 'Rome was the
most magnificent irrelevance to what we were doing. It's a strange thing, but
you have to close off your perception of everything that isn't immediately
useful or a part of your role, so you try to shut Rome out.'
Finding a place to stay
during filming also posed an interesting challenge.
'I couldn't have lived in
the city. I would have found it too unsettling. So if I can't find a place to
stay that's directly connected to what I'm doing, then I try to find a place
that's neutral. And so that's what I ended up doing. I never really discovered
Rome,' he adds, laughing.
He stayed instead in a
little town called Divino Amore, near Castel Gandolfo, outside Rome.
When asked how he managed
to go home to the 'irrelevancies' of his wife, actress-director Rebecca Miller,
and their two young sons, at the end of a work day, he smiles.
'It's funny because
there's a fellow next door who kept harping on about it, almost to the point
where he was accusing me of victimising my family,' he says, good-naturedly.
'Undoubtedly, it's
something I'm still learning because it's still a relatively new experience for
me not to go back to an empty house at the end of shoot.
'It's not easy and yet at
the same time, thanks be to God that there is something outside of that tunnel
that you can just give yourself over to for those brief moments.
'I think my attitude to
my work has changed. It has the same importance for me when I'm doing it, but
much less importance when I'm not doing it.'
Miller, 40, whom he wed
in 1996, is the daughter of playwright Arthur Miller.
They have two sons -
Ronan, four, and Cashel Blake, seven months. Day-Lewis also has another son,
Gabriel Kane, seven, from his previous relationship with French actress
Isabelle Adjani.
While his erstwhile love affairs,
with Adjani as well as other famous names like Julia Roberts and Winona Ryder,
generated much tabloid buzz, he seems to have found solitude and peace with
Miller. They met when he was filming The Crucible, based on her father's play,
in 1995.
Like her, he grew up in
an artistic family - his father, Cecil Day-Lewis, was a Poet Laureate and his
mother, Jill Balcon, was an actress. His maternal grandfather was Sir Michael
Balcon, who once headed Britain's famous Ealing Studios.
During the interview, he
slips in a plug for Miller's latest film, Personal Velocity.
'Have you seen it? It's
quite wonderful,' he asks, adding that he had been very closely involved during
the editing process although he had stayed away from the set.
He also will not rule out
the possibility of working with her on a project in future, 'but it would have
to be very carefully considered because of the particular demands that would be
made on us'.
Understandably, he has a
tremendous affinity for those who understand and tolerate the artistic process,
which probably explains why he chose to work again with Scorsese.
The two had collaborated
together previously in 1993, on The Age Of Innocence.
Unlike the rest of the
Gangs cast, who call the director 'Marty', Day-Lewis prefers 'Martin', almost
as if it were the more respectful thing to say.
On the Gangs set, the two
allegedly had a kind of spiritual shorthand where each understood what the
other wanted, without any need for words.
'I think that's a good
sign,' says Day-Lewis. 'Obviously, we had spoken about numerous things,
relating not just to me but to the film in general in the period before we
started to shoot.
'But if you can get rid
of all that stuff before you start the shoot, it's a good thing - a very good
thing. I think all the best working relationships are like that.'
At the end of the day, he
is all about the craft, which leads him to be extremely critical of his own
work. He admits that he finds it difficult to watch most of his films again.
'I can't think of any
examples in which I ever was happily surprised by my performance,' he
confesses.
'It's an imperfect art. I
can see the stuff I would have done differently. But then I had no control at
the time, or not much; and so I can only save myself by saying that's what I evidently
needed to do at the time, and that's what I did. There's always a sense of
disappointment,' he adds.
Now, with Gangs behind
him, he has no idea what his next project will be, nor is he eager to embark on
one.
He could disappear again.
Perhaps to apprentice as a shoemaker in Florence, Italy? That was apparently
how he spent his last five-year break, according to the grapevine.
At the mention of this,
Day-Lewis clams up.
'I've never spoken about
that,' he says. 'I've done a number of different things over the years.'
And what were they?
'I've never spoken about
them,' he says, chuckling uncomfortably. 'And I don't really see the purpose of
it.'
The infamously private
and press-shy Daniel Day-Lewis has surfaced finally.
He puts on his coat,
smiles at the room and says goodbye.
· Gangs Of New York sneaks this weekend and
opens on Jan 1.
THINGS YOU MAY NOT
HAVE KNOWN ABOUT DANIEL DAY-LEWIS
· HIS full name is Daniel
Michael Blake Day-Lewis, and he was born in London on April 29, 1957
· He is 1.87m tall
· His older sister, Lydia
Tamasin, is a documentary film-maker
· He turned down the role of
Aragorn in the Lord Of The Rings trilogy. It went to Viggo Mortensen eventually
· He assumed Irish citizenship
and moved to County Wicklow, Ireland, in 1993
· In 1990, he was chosen by
People magazine as one of its 50 Most Beautiful People in the world
· Including Gangs, he has acted
in 17 movies, like My Beautiful Laundrette (1985), Room With A View (1986), The
Unbearable Lightness Of Being (1988), My Left Foot (1989), The Last Of The
Mohicans (above, 1992), In The Name Of The Father (1993) and The Age Of
Innocence (1993)
· His first role was
uncredited: He played a child vandal in Sunday Bloody Sunday (1971) which
starred Glenda Jackson.