10 Actors Who Conducted Insane Research For Iconic Movie Roles

1. Daniel Day-Lewis - His Entire Filmography

Daniel Day-Lewis is probably the most famous "method" actor in the world, and serves as living proof that "immersing yourself in questionable, insane ways" will certainly pay off come awards season. Seriously: the man has won three Best Actor Oscars in just over two decades, more than any other living actor - more than Marlon Brando, Jack Nicholson, Robert De Niro, and all those other good actors people like to list. So where does Day-Lewis conjure up these Academy Award-ready characters, time after time? The answer, my friends, is in the research, which ol' Daniel goes nuts for. And he's been doing the stuff on an extensive basis every since he got into movies.

For The Boxer, Day-Lewis trained for a whopping 18 months with professional fist-puncher Barry Mcguigan (he later said that the actor could've easily been a professional boxer). Before hoping into bed with Martin Scorsese for period flick The Age of Innocence, Daniel Day-Lewis checked into a hotel under his character's name, and spent months wandering around with a top hat and cane. It gets insaner. Before filming began on In The Name of the Father (in which Day-Lewis plays a convict), the actor decided that he should get locked up in solitary confinement in an abandoned prison. He also asked that the crew throw water and abuse him for the duration of filming, 'cause method.

Working with Scorsese again, Day-Lewis took up lessons as an apprentice butcher, as to play the cold-blooded Bill The Butcher in Gangs of New York (that's a role with real "meat"). Perhaps most impressive of all, though, is the research which the actor undertook prior to filming The Last of the Mohicans.

As to get fully acquainted with the lifestyle of his character, Day-Lewis spent months living alone in the wilderness, learning to do wilderness-y things. He adapted to survive by hunting for every one of his meals (even during filming), and when he returned from livin' like Ray Mears, the man had somehow taught himself how to build a fully-fledged canoe.

Then there's the Oscar movies: My Left Foot (he pretended to be cerebral palsy victim Christy Brown for the entire length of production), There Will Be Blood (he pretended to be Daniel Planview for the entire length of production), and Lincoln (he pretend to be the President for the entire length of production), all of which involved Day-Lewis immersing himself with fifty times the dedication that, say, Nicolas Cage seems to put into doing anything nowadays. What does this all mean, then? That Daniel Day-Lewis has managed to not only become the most respected actor of his generation, but has also managed to live a number of different lives through his movies characters.

Which is to say, he's making the rest of us all look like serious underachievers.