Daniel Day-Lewis: In the blood
Tuesday, 05 Feb 2008 17:23
Daniel Day-Lewis is expected to claim the best actor Oscar.
The inthenews.co.uk interview with Oscar nominee Daniel Day-Lewis continues.
Speaking at a press conference after the film's first UK showing in November last year, Day-Lewis told reporters its 20-minute wordless opening was, rather than presenting a challenge to cast and crew, "a delight".
"It seemed true that the life of this man in this situation could be revealed in such a way that you knew everything you needed to know about him without every saying a word, and I thought there was something quite remarkable about that", he explained.
"We actually shot a much longer version, it would have been about 30 minutes had we not had to try and condense it. It was a whole overture."
Based on Upton Sinclair's socialist tract Oil!, There Will Be Blood sees Day-Lewis as a figure startlingly similar to Edward Doheny, an oil tycoon who transformed a fledgling well business into the PanAmerican Petroleum and Transport Company, owners of some $50 million worth of land in early 20th century Mexico.
Though Day-Lewis explained his turn as Plainview was only inspired by factual details of the oil boom, he added that Doheny was "one of the principal characters" in the building of Los Angeles.
"We filmed the last couple of scenes of the movie in the Doheny mansion," he added, "which, in every respect, feels like a pyramid, like a monument that a pharaoh built for his own quiet self-destruction."
The mansion plays an integral role in the movie's startling last scene, with Plainview and Eli matched in a final, soul-destroying power struggle.
Having worked with Dano - driven to desperation in the earth-shattering climax - on Rebecca Miller's The Ballad of Jack and Rose, Day-Lewis opined that the Little Miss Sunshine star is "undoubtedly one of the most promising young actors working at the moment", adding: "I like him so much as a man too, which always helps."
Though Day-Lewis' extensive training for his role in The Boxer and his apprenticeships with butchers while preparing for Gangs of New York are famed as clear examples of his steadfast dedication to his craft, he denied a wholesale assumption of an oil tycoon's mindset while preparing for his part as Plainview.
"I wish I could say there was some monstrous… well, I mean there are a couple of monstrous members of the family that I could have based him on! [laughs]
"But no, there was no model. It was rumoured that I'd built a derrick [oil drilling mechanism] behind my house in County Wicklow and I must say when I read that I thought 'That's not a bad idea actually!' But we were a bit short on help at the time," he joked.
He added that critics and audiences alike are to some extent guilty of focusing "on the details, the practical details, 'in this clinic', 'in that prison' and so on".
"As much as that work is a vital part of it and always fuel to one's fascination, the principal work is always in the imagination. The imagination in very close working partnership with the unconscious. When the work is happening the way it should be, you can't be entirely in control of it."
There Will Be Blood is released in the UK on Friday February 8th.
Lewis Bazley
To watch the trailer on inthenews.co.uk, click here
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