February 16, 2011
By Staff Reporter
Speaking with a heavy 19th century New York accent, Day-Lewis is barely recognizable in garish period costume, complete with top hat and plaid trousers. His chiseled features are hidden by a gigantic handlebar moustache, while one of his green eyes, peering out from a mop of greasy hair, is replaced by a glass orb baring the image of an eagle.
Famous for immersing himself in his roles, the 45-year-old actor says he approached the fascinating and complex character of this early American mobster as he would any other character.
“What you’re looking for is always different and that primarily is something inside of yourself,” he said. “The details are neither here nor there. It really is always the same thing — to create for yourself by whatever means the illusion that you’re seeing and experiencing the word through a different sensibility and a different pair of eyes.”
Day-Lewis, who also starred in “In the Name of the Father” and “Sunday Bloody Sunday,” dodged specific questions regarding his accent, stating: “I am so loath to talk about the preparation. . . . It’s my logic, it may not be theirs, but the venture that we’re involved with is a venture of insanity. We’re trying to make a film. It’s a kind of madness. We’re all involved in the same thing. The work that I do is to try to convince people that I am somebody else. What possible preparation could be stranger than the thing itself? To arrive at that? I think lying in a caravan making phone calls to your business manager, that would seem crazy to me.”
Asked how aware he was of this little spoken about period of Irish history in America, Day-Lewis, notes: “I was certainly aware of the period during which the coffin ships as they called them were disgorging boatloads of howling, disenfranchised people into Lower Manhattan, but beyond that I knew nothing of this history. Nothing.”
Confessing that he tends to have “personal, rather selfish reasons for doing the work,” the actor said he was intrigued by these historical events as an actor, but admitted that he doesn’t have any expectations that “Gangs of New York” will do anything other than entertain people.
“It’s because it appeals to me in a particular way,” he said. “I don’t set out with any greater hope for the thing and if people are able to get a broader meaning from it than the sheer pleasure of seeing a good film, if it turns out to be one, then wonderful, but I think it is dangerous to set out with those intentions.”
So, did it bother Day-Lewis to play the American villain, who murders an Irish hero (Liam Neeson) and oppresses his Catholic followers, the Dead Rabbits? “There was some kind of a glee,” he said. “It was a liberating thing. I have been very firmly rooted in my sense of identification with Ireland and the people of that country for many years, but it’s a kind of a liberating thing to cross the border line and turn around and look at it from the opposite point of view.”
The married father of three, who was reportedly apprenticing as a cobbler in Italy when he got the call from director Martin Scorsese to star in this film, says he has no other film projects on the burners right now.
Asked if he plans to let another five years go by before he again appears on the big screen, the actor said: “I didn’t set out to let five years pass. I’ve only been reminded in the last few days constantly that I’ve let five years passed. I’m not being deliberately obtuse about it, but I wasn’t aware of that time passing. I was quite happily engaged in other things. I didn’t set out to let five years pass. I set out to indulge my curiosity in other things, not just to get away from this work.”
Sidebar 2:
“Gangs of New York” timeline
1800: New York City population 60,000
1825: Erie Canal completed
1830: Early Five Points Gangs form, including the Dead Rabbits
1834: Native Americans establish political party
1845: Irish Famine begins
1847: Irish immigration to New York swells
1855: City’s population reached 800,000
1857: First Five Points riot
1861: Civil War begins
1863: Draft Riots take place in streets of New York City