Okay, we'll admit it: Authenticity aside, we're not sure we can accept an Abraham Lincoln that doesn't dispatch at least 5 or 6 vampires during a movie's running time.
That said, if anyone can erase the vision of Benjamin Walker chopping his way through the Confederate Bloodsuckers of America it would be Daniel Day-Lewis, whose turn as our 16th President in Steven Spielberg's straight-up biopic "Lincoln" is finally being revealed in the first official publicity still via Entertainment Weekly.
Despite some sneaky iPhone photos taken during filming on the Richmond, Virginia set, this is our first glimpse at the "There Will Be Blood" Oscar-winner's transformation into Honest Abe, and that profile should be very familiar to anyone who's held a penny recently. Day-Lewis has captured not just the pensive, brooding nature of the man, he's also delved into what Spielberg calls a "very, very complicated inner life."
Apparently, he did all this without building and living in his own log cabin or any of that other method actor nonsense frequently associated with the dedicated performer.
"Daniel was always conscious of his contemporary surroundings," says Spielberg Spielberg says. "Daniel never went into a fugue state. He did not channel Lincoln. All that stuff is just more about gossip than it is about technique."
One caveat to on-set protocol was that Day-Lewis was referred to by cast and crew as "Mr. President," but that process wasn't alien to the "E.T." director.
"I was calling [all] the actors by their character names," Spielberg clarified. "That was something I felt was important to establish a little authenticity, maybe even more for me than for them."
The historical drama, which covers the final four months of the Great Emancipator's life will be given its freedom to be shown in theaters across the country on November 9.
