The obsessive actor is taking his role as Honest Abe very seriously, writes Paul Whitington Daniel Day-Lewis is currently playing the title role in Steven Spielberg’s big-budget biopic of Abraham Lincoln, and a recent photo taken in a Virginia restaurant shows he’s up to his usual tricks. Sporting a Quaker beard, swept-back salt-and-pepper hair and a thin-lipped half-smile, the actor looks uncannily like the 16th US President, despite being on his lunch break.
Seven years in the planning, Spielberg’s Lincoln is based on the bestselling book Team of Equals and will focus on the great man’s political achievements during the Civil War, when he kept together a cabinet of bitter rivals and succeeded in passing a revolutionary new law abolishing slavery. Liam Neeson was originally cast in the role of Lincoln, but in 2010 he left the project and Day-Lewis took his place. He’s approaching the role with his usual intensity.
