The thing that really separates Daniel Day Lewis from other actors in terms of quality lies in his prep for a role, you see while some actors rehearse and slip in and out of character, Day Lewis is renowned for living his role, literally becoming his character while he lives his everyday life. Knowing the characters he has played, the likes of Daniel Plainview and Bill 'The Butcher' Cutting (from Gangs of New York) it certainly makes you feel sorry for his wife. When recounting working on Lincoln with him Joseph Gordon Levitt said that throughout the whole process Daniel Day Lewis would walk around as Abe Lincoln and people referred to him as sir or Mr President (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LtgWIvpcbA), so extensive was his commitment to becoming the character. However, it is all well and good knowing this but what does it benefit the role, why stay as Daniel Plainview or Abe Lincoln forever if you can just punch in and punch out like a regular job? Well, think of it this way, if someone is their character the whole time, then they re constantly reacting to situations as their character and they're constantly having to learn new things about their character, this means that when the camera rolls their meticulously designed subconscious takes over and therefore they are no longer acting they are just being returned to the setting where they are supposed to exist and are therefore in their element with it.
If we take (what I believe to be) Day Lewis' best scene (the milkshake scene from There Will be Blood) and analyse the performance I believe we can see fairly clearly that this isn't acting per se, but someone who is in the head of their character and is genuinely feeling pure disdain for the person in front of them. Admittedly this may not be easy to separate from a non method form of acting but I believe it manifests itself in the movements and interactions that Day Lewis exudes. The subtle touches of Eli's arm and his lean towards him when he begins to answer back, these don't appear to be conscious movements from an actor but to me they seem to be subconscious and unplanned because this is how someone of Plainview's temperament would act when trying to explain something to a person they despise and feel hugely superior to.
If it wasn't clear enough already the crazy extents Day-Lewis has been to in the striving for perfection in his roles here is a short (if not slightly annoying video) which highlights some of the methods and preparations he has undergone to fill the role he has been given.
The point of this is not to show how great he is to the people reading this post it is to highlight the importance of getting into the head of a character and becoming that character (not necessarily all of the time as Day-Lewis does, but at the very least when the camera is rolling so that everything is done through the subconscious. How then does this help me, after all, I could look at actors all day and how they work, that doesn't mean it will aid my work in any way at all. This helps me because it gives me some idea of how I may aid actors in character building as I may be able to give them things to do outside of filming to give them experience of being their character or at least doing what their character does, if I had the resources, I might get an actress a job as a waitress in order to give her the feel of what that life is like. Or on a smaller scale I may have her practise carrying multiple cups and plates so that she can do this seamlessly on set and give a realistic portrayal. I mean this because no matter how in the head of a character the actor is, if they can't do the jobs that the character should be able to do then they will be pulled out of this mindset and the performance will suffer.
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