Each year since 1994, members of the Screen Actor’s Guild, now SAG-AFTRA, come together to honor fellow performs in film and television. Spoilers may follow!
There are very few actors who can disappear so deeply into a role that we forget their celebrity persona and actually get to go on the character’s journey with them. Daniel Day-Lewis is a master at this craft and drifts effortlessly between his onscreen roles.
Steven Spielberg’s epic biopic, Lincoln, opens at the height of the American Civil War with the newly appointed President (Daniel Day-Lewis) searching for a way to pass the Thirteenth Amendment, thereby abolishing slavery in the United States forever. In order to receive the necessary votes, Lincoln and his staff stoop to dirty politics by granting favors and offering bribes, hoping to sway the House of Representatives. Days after the Amendment passes, the Confederates negotiate for peace only if it is not ratified. Lincoln denies them this and the war continues, only to end with Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s surrender two months later. Although we know how this Presidential term ends, it is no less tragic, as Lincoln is assassinated days later.
Sprinkled with bits of humor and grief, Lincoln gives a well-rounded glimpse of what the President may have been like. Spun throughout the political drama are also pieces of Lincoln’s personal life: the tragedy of losing his son; Mary Todd Lincoln (Sally Field) and her neuroses; a tumultuous relationship with his eldest son Robert (Joseph Gordon-Levitt); a storyteller who loves a good pun. With so many layers to Lincoln, the man, it must have been the character development of a lifetime!
Daniel Day-Lewis is absolutely mesmerizing to watch, in everything that he does. Lincoln is no exception. Every little mannerism and inflection is unique to his Lincoln character, influenced by months of research and rehearsals to make it “just so.” I would like to think that many actors are just as capable to play such an iconic role, however I would be fooling myself. There are few who would be brave enough to take on such an endeavor and even fewer who could succeed at breathing life into the legend.
Just hand him the award and let him speak – he will never cease to mesmerize!
