Daniel Day Lewis Quotes

On one occasion, Daniel Day-Lewis, Jeremy Irons and myself were due to appear at the Sarajevo film festival and were turned off a UN plane on orders from Geneva. We had to get local journalists to transport the films in for us. I tell you this only to demonstrate that festivals can be a lifeline. But, after all the difficulties I'd had in getting there, in 1996 I found myself being flown in on a four-seater RAF plane as an official guest, endorsed by the British Embassy. Ironically, the film I was to present was Mission: Impossible. ~ Vanessa Redgrave

I love my films. I have stacks and stacks of DVDs. I put 'Last of the Mohicans' on the other day with Daniel Day-Lewis. It hurts me to say it because he's a Millwall fan, but I think he's fantastic. ~ Alvin Martin

God knows, I haven't always been successful. ~ Daniel Day-Lewis

The more articulate somebody is, the more suspicious I am of them. I like to feel that the important things remain unsaid. ~ Daniel Day-Lewis

When I was younger, I made some decisions that I shouldn't have. And, in hindsight, I've almost always been wrong when I haven't listened to myself. ~ Daniel Day-Lewis

For as long as I can remember, the thing that gave me a sense of wonderment and renewal ... has always been the work of other actors. ~ Daniel Day-Lewis

If people take an interest in you and they think there's half a chance, they might hang on. It's dreadful. ~ Daniel Day-Lewis

I actually love auditioning because I usually don't get the part. I've tested with Daniel Day-Lewis, Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Tom Cruise. So I've gotten to that point, and I understand when I don't get it. There are a lot of very talented people out there. ~ Deborah Kara Unger

Well, we all have murderous thoughts throughout the day, if not the week. ~ Daniel Day-Lewis

I like to learn about things. ~ Daniel Day-Lewis

Stepping into the "shoes" of someone's life other than my own, great movies such as Cinema Paradiso, scenic landscapes, the work of Daniel Day-Lewis, the books of Joel Goldsmith, traveling, doughnuts, ice cream. ~ Reggie Lee

The one thing that I appear to have been given, bearing in mind that I am capable of being very, very scatty and extremely lazy, is the ability to concentrate on something I choose to give my time to. ~ Daniel Day-Lewis

I'm not picky, quite honestly. ~ Daniel Day-Lewis

Just stay alive, no matter what occurs! I will find you. No matter how long it takes, no matter how far. I will find you! ~ Daniel Day-Lewis

I know that every actor that I know, when Daniel Day-Lewis does a film, and he doesn't work that often, but we run to the theater to see what he's up to, and with such delicious excitement. The same goes for Meryl Streep. ~ Rosemarie DeWitt

The dream would be to work with my two favorite actors, Daniel Day Lewis and Cate Blanchett. Or playing Joaquin Phoenix's brother in a film. Basically anything where I get to act opposite actors like these; ones who bring a certain caliber to their work and literally morph into the character they are playing. ~ Drew Fuller

A voice is such a deep, personal reflection of character. ~ Daniel Day-Lewis

I hate wasting people's time. ~ Daniel Day-Lewis

I see a lot of movies. I love films as a spectator, and that's never obscured by the part of me that does the work myself. I just love going to the movies. ~ Daniel Day-Lewis

I didn't like the idea of being foolish, but I learned pretty soon that it was essential to fail and be foolish. ~ Daniel Day-Lewis

I'm a little bit perverse, and I just hate doing the thing that's the most obvious. ~ Daniel Day-Lewis

I find it easier to work when it's quiet. ~ Daniel Day-Lewis

The word Amendment itself is an encouraging thing, isn't it? Because an amendment, it tells of a system of government that allows for the improvement of itself. Just move forward a little bit, one day at a time. ~ Daniel Day-Lewis

I don't deal at all well with the relative amount of stuff I have to face already. ~ Daniel Day-Lewis

When I've gone back to work, it's always with that sense of inevitability. That may be a complete delusion, but it's the one that I need to get out of bed and go about my business. That sense that I can't avoid this thing. I better just get on with it. ~ Daniel Day-Lewis

My curiosity sustains me for the period of the shoot. ~ Daniel Day-Lewis

I'm not really a storyteller myself - I tend to get all tangled up when I try and tell stories. ~ Daniel Day-Lewis

This was not even a particularly big offense in the pantheon of book club crimes, where the worst sin one could commit was not to read the book in question
or, even worse, to lie about having read the book when, in fact, you'd simply seen the movie, a lie usually uncovered when you used the actor's name by accident. ("I love the part where Daniel Day-Lewis ... ") ~ Will Schwalbe

We all live under some repression; we have to, it's part of the deal. ~ Daniel Day-Lewis

When I did make the decision to focus on acting, I think my mother was just relieved for me that I had finally started to focus. ~ Daniel Day-Lewis

It is awesome to feel you are carrying on the family name. ~ Daniel Day-Lewis

Many years ago, I really didn't know where the next work was coming from. ~ Daniel Day-Lewis

If you remain unsettled by a piece of writing, it means you are not watching the story from the outside; you've already taken a step towards it. ~ Daniel Day-Lewis

Being at the centre of a film is a burden one takes on with innocence the first time. Thereafter, you take it on with trepidation. ~ Daniel Day-Lewis

I suppose the place where I live is fairly remote, it would seem remote to some people. ~ Daniel Day-Lewis

My main memories of my father are of his illness. ~ Daniel Day-Lewis

England is obsessed with where you came from, and they are determined to keep you in that place, be it in a drawing room or in the gutter. ~ Daniel Day-Lewis

Some people have heard of The Method, which originally goes back to Stanislavski ... he gave you six major pointers whereby you became that character and tried to fool your mind psychologically. That's it in a nutshell. Daniel Day Lewis is an example of somebody like that who stays in character between takes. ~ David Wenham

I have always been intrigued by these lives I have never experienced. ~ Daniel Day-Lewis

At some point in your life, if you're lucky, you get to design the way in which things evolve. ~ Daniel Day-Lewis

Acting is about people. Other people. Otherwise, you're not acting, you're doing monologues. ~ Daniel Day-Lewis

Periodically over the years I've always taken periods of time away from acting. ~ Daniel Day-Lewis

I was a savage for so many years of my life. There was some seed of determination in me that I was not conscious of. I was mostly consciously getting into trouble and drunk. ~ Daniel Day-Lewis

I never retreat from films, as it were, I simply indulge in other interests, that's all. ~ Daniel Day-Lewis

Films exhaust me, they do, and I often want nothing more to do with them, but I'm continually surprised at the resurgence of the impulse to come back and do it all over again. ~ Daniel Day-Lewis

To people who don't know me I'm defined by a number of things that people know about me that are entirely untrue. ~ Daniel Day-Lewis

Perhaps I'm particularly serious, because I'm not unaware of the potential absurdity of what I'm doing. ~ Daniel Day-Lewis

I think I have a strange relationship with time. I'm not really aware of that time passing. I don't feel that I'm wasteful with time. But I'm not aware of it passing. ~ Daniel Day-Lewis

If you have a certain wildness of spirit, a cabinet maker's workshop is not the place to express it. ~ Daniel Day-Lewis

I'm not actually a big musical fan. ~ Daniel Day-Lewis

Leaving a role is a terrible sadness. The last day of the shooting is surreal. Your soul, your body and your mind are not ready at all to see the end of this experience. In the following months after a film shoot, one feels a deep sense of void. ~ Daniel Day-Lewis

I still relate to my father very much. I mean, I talk to him in a certain way, as we do talk to the dead. ~ Daniel Day-Lewis

Making a film, setting it up and getting it cast and getting it together, is not an easy thing. ~ Daniel Day-Lewis

I admire actors that consistently challenge themselves and play a wide range of different roles. Every actor has a reason for being an actor ... it's boring to play the same person over and over again. People like Daniel Day Lewis, who completely transform time and time again, I look up to. ~ Joe Dempsie

My preference is that, that day when someone sticks a tripod in front of you with a camera on the top, it is not day one. ~ Daniel Day-Lewis

I distinctly remember watching Daniel Day Lewis in 'My Left Foot,' and my parents were discussing the fact that he's an actor. To me, it was a foreign concept. I was like, 'Someone is pretending to do that? That's so awesome!' After that, it just stayed in the back of my mind. ~ Dominique McElligott

It's a source of great sadness to me that my father died without having seen me do anything worthwhile. He was constantly having to make excuses for me. ~ Daniel Day-Lewis

I made the film in spite of Harvey, not because of Harvey. ~ Daniel Day-Lewis

When I was a kid, I wanted to be serious, like Daniel Day-Lewis. No one really dreams of being a comic actor, do they? Now I realise how stupid that is - and it's because comic acting isn't taken seriously enough. It's a discipline. You know instantly - either you're funny and getting the laughs, or you're not. ~ Chris O'Dowd

I had a very vivid, almost hallucinatory moment in which I was engaged in a dialogue with my father. ~ Daniel Day-Lewis

I suppose I have a highly developed capacity for self-delusion, so it's no problem for me to believe that I'm somebody else! ~ Daniel Day-Lewis

You know the way there are two kinds of actors - the De Niro kind who's always De Niro, and then somebody like Daniel Day-Lewis, who transforms himself eerily? Well, I aim to be the Daniel Day-Lewis kind of writer. I don't have a house style. ~ Emma Donoghue

I would make the tea on a Daniel Day-Lewis set just to observe how he crafts roles like he did in 'My Left Foot.' That was the equivalent of seeing Haley's Comet for me. I just couldn't understand how that was possible. ~ David Oyelowo

It must be hard interviewing actors. ~ Daniel Day-Lewis

Actors should never give interviews. ~ Daniel Day-Lewis

Actors like Daniel Day-Lewis, Gary Oldman, they totally immerse themselves in their parts. ~ Sean Bean

I don't torture myself. ~ Daniel Day-Lewis

As actors, we're all encouraged to feel that each job is the last job. They plant some little electrode in your head at an early stage and you think, 'Be grateful, be grateful, be grateful.' ~ Daniel Day-Lewis

I have a competition in me. I want no one else to succeed. I hate most people. ~ Daniel Day-Lewis

Whats nice about my dating life is that I dont have to leave my house. All I have to do is read the paper: Im marrying Richard Gere, dating Daniel Day-Lewis, parading around with John F. Kennedy, Jr., and even Robert De Niro was in there for a day. ~ Julia Roberts

Daniel Day-Lewis and Sean Penn to me are the two best actors of all time. I'm just glad to have the pleasure to be in an era that they're acting while I'm acting. They're probably the best actors in my mind. ~ Channing Tatum

I've been very lucky. ~ Daniel Day-Lewis

I suppose it's a very highly developed form of denial, but some part of me completely denies that I'm a performer. ~ Daniel Day-Lewis

Shoes are strange things. If you take your shoes off in a situation in which you're vulnerable, you'll feel 10 times more vulnerable. ~ Daniel Day-Lewis

I meet Daniel Day-Lewis. He's just sitting in a chair on the set. Now, I had been told that Daniel Day-Lewis was kind of an intense person. And he's really not. He's really THE MOST INTENSE PERSON THAT HAS EVER EXISTED ON THE PLANET OF EARTH. He's not doing anything, he's just sitting in a chair, and I am terrified of him as if a jungle cat has wandered onto the set, like- WHOA! What do we do! Are we supposed to move around a lot or stay perfectly still?! What are the rules of Daniel Day-Lewis?! ~ Paul F. Tompkins

The West has always been the epicentre of possibility. One of the ways we forge against mortality is to head west. It's to do with catching the sun before it slips behind the horizon. ~ Daniel Day-Lewis

You've just provided me with the makings of one hell of a weekend in Dublin. ~ Daniel Day-Lewis

For about a year, I just didn't know what to do. I did laboring jobs, working in the docks, construction sites. ~ Daniel Day-Lewis

I avoid talking about the way I work. But in avoiding it I seem only to have encouraged people to focus their fantasies about me in an ever more fantastical way. ~ Daniel Day-Lewis

I think some actors thrive on working at a much greater pace than I do. ~ Daniel Day-Lewis

I'm a big fan of Daniel Day-Lewis. He's a marvelous actor. He stands alone, I think. ~ Lauren Bacall

I just knew at an early time in my life how important privacy was. ~ Daniel Day-Lewis

I depleted myself to the point where I had nothing left. ~ Daniel Day-Lewis

'Lincoln' is impressive enough to almost make you forget how much Daniel Day-Lewis dominates the endeavor. ~ Steve Erickson

As a member of the audience I don't like it that I can't see what's going on in the eyes and in the face and in the most subtle responses of a performer when I'm more than a few rows back. I find it very frustrating. ~ Daniel Day-Lewis

I don't know what impression you might have of the way I live. I live in a quiet place. I do not live as a hermit, though other people would prefer it if I did. ~ Daniel Day-Lewis

Film has become such a central part of our culture now that I think sometimes too great a weight is placed upon it in terms of scrutiny and analysis. There's a lot of rather specious professorial stuff that swirls around films. ~ Daniel Day-Lewis

I like things that make you grit your teeth. I like tucking my chin in and sort of leading into the storm. I like that feeling. I like it a lot. ~ Daniel Day-Lewis

I'm a warrior when it comes to pursuing roles. ~ Daniel Day-Lewis

On the day I was born, or possibly on one of the following days, my father went on a walk in the forested hills and thought of a name for me. His first son was called Daniel, and Samuel in memory of one of his forefathers. ~ Immanuel Velikovsky

But oh, beamish nephew, beware of the day,
If your Snark be a Boojum! for then
You will softly and suddenly vanish away,
And never be met with again! ~ Lewis Carroll

I've worked every day since I was 10. I don't know how to do anything else. There is nothing else I'd rather be doing. ~ Daniel Radcliffe

William Shakespeare. She knew him. They were,the three of them-Lucinda,Daniel,and Shakespeare-friends. There had been a summer afternoon when Daniel had taken Lucinda to visit Shakespeare at his home in Stratford. Toward sunset,they'd sat in the library,and while Daniel worked on his sketches at the window, Will had asked her question after question-all the while taking furious notes-about when she'd first met Daniel, how she felt about him, whether she thought she could one day fall in love.
Aside from Daniel,Shakespeare was the only one who knew the secret of Lucinda's indentity-her gender-and the love the players shared offstage. In exchange for his discretion,Lucinda was keeping the secret that Shakespeare was present that night at the Globe. Everyone else in the company assumed that he was in Stratford, that he'd handed over the reins of the theater to Master Fletcher.Instead,Will appeared incognito to see the play's opening night.
When she returned to his side,Shakespeare gazed deep into Lucinda's eyes. "You've changed."
"I-no,I'm still"-she felt the soft brocade around her shoulders. "Yes, I found the cloak."
"The cloak,is it?" He smiled at her, winked. "It suits you. ~ Lauren Kate

We make deals with the devil every day, metaphorically. ~ Daniel Waters

When something is coming off of a Neve board and being laid down on tape, it's like a warm blanket for the brain. When you're working in a digital form, it's so harsh; it's almost painful. Your ears get more fatigued if you're mixing all day. ~ Jenny Lewis

The day cold and fair with a high easterly wind: we were visited by two Indians who gave us an account of the country and people near the Rocky mountains where they had been. ~ Meriwether Lewis

I look at each day as a chance to move one notch above yesterday - whether it's in service quality, delivery, speed, or any other aspect of the business. ~ Daniel Snyder

I could do Daniel Day-Lewis's job as well as him. ~ Laurence Fox

Once when I was about 13, in an angry fit, I walked out of the house vowing I would never return. It was a beautiful summer day, and I walked far along lovely lanes, till gradually the stillness and beauty calmed and soothed me, and after some hours I returned repentant and almost melted. Since then when I am angry, I do this if I can, and find it the best cure. ~ Daniel Goleman

To shrink back from all that can be called Nature into negative spirituality is as if we ran away from horses instead of learning to ride. There is in our present pilgrim condition plenty of room (more room than most of us like) for abstinence and renunciation and mortifying our natural desires. But behind all asceticism the thought should be, 'Who will trust us with the true wealth if we cannot be trusted even with the wealth that perishes?' Who will trust me with a spiritual body if I cannot control even an earthly body? These small and perishable bodies we now have were given to us as ponies are given to schoolboys. We must learn to manage: not that we may some day be free of horses altogether but that some day we may ride bare-back, confident and rejoicing, those greater mounts, those winged, shining and world- shaking horses which perhaps even now expect us with impatience, pawing and snorting in the King's stables. Not that the gallop would be of any value unless it were a gallop with the King; but how else - since He has retained His own charger - should we accompany Him? ~ C.S. Lewis