Daniel Day-Lewis, with three Oscars already in the bag, retired from acting this past year with his final role being another brilliant performance in Paul Thomas Anderson‘s “Phantom Thread.” The ultimate method actor, Day-Lewis is known for taking extreme measures to perfect a given role. He apprenticed with an actual butcher for his role as Bill “The Butcher” in “Gangs of New York“; he was fully in character, both on and off-screen, as Abraham Lincoln in “Lincoln“; he learned to build canoes, lived with Native Americans, learned to track and skin animals for his role in “The Last Of The Mohicans“; he refused to use his hands, only using his feet to complete daily tasks, for his role as cerebral palsy-inflicted, celebrated painter Christie Brown in “My Left Foot“; he learned to speak Czech for “The Unbearable Lightness of Being,” oh, and lest we forget, he spent nights in jail, was asked to be verbally abused by prisoners, and lost 50 pounds to play an Irish prisoner in “In The Name of the Father.” Yikes, and that’s not even the half of it.
His latest rigorous bout of method acting was to prepare for the role of Reynolds Woodcock, a fictional couturier in 1950s England. To get fully immersed in the role, he served as an apprentice under Marc Happel, the New York City Ballet’s costume director, learned the craftsmanship required to be fashion designer and watched fashion footage of the era – but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. If you think that’s impressive, here’s the kicker: he ended up making a Balenciaga dress! As he explained to W Magazine, Day-Lewis remade a Balenciaga sheath dress from scratch and used his wife, director Rebecca Miller, as his model.
READ MORE: ‘Phantom Thread’ Trailer: Paul Thomas Anderson & Daniel Day-Lewis Get Fashionable
“The Balenciaga dress was very simple,” he said. “Or at least it looked very simple until I had to figure out a way to make it and then realized, My God, this is incredibly complicated. There is nothing more beautiful in all the arts than something that appears simple. And if you try to do any goddamn thing in your life, you know how impossible it is to achieve that effortless simplicity. Rebecca was very patient. The code that I had to crack was a very particular gusset in the armpit. You couldn’t tell from the photos how the gusset was designed. Rebecca has worn the dress. It’s very pretty.”
Are we surprised by all of this? Of course not. We all expected facts like this to eventually emerge. Why would Day-Lewis not method act for any movie he tackles? His dedication to his craft is second to none and obsessive. He’s done this sort of thing his entire career and to think he wouldn’t do it for his final film would be oblivious to who this man is: a driven, highly-talented and legendary actor. Now, as for the Balenciaga dress, we would like to see it for ourselves, please.