10 Insane Skills Actors Learned For Movie Roles

4. Daniel Day-Lewis Learned How To Live Like His Native American Character (The Last Of The Mohicans)

The Last Of The Mohicans Daniel Day Lewis
Fox

Stories of Daniel Day-Lewis' intense method acting could probably fill several of these lists, whether it's him learning how to speak Czech for The Unbearable Lightness Of Being, or learning how to box for his role in The Boxer.

For his role in historical epic The Last Of The Mohicans though, he didn't just acquire one or two new skills - he acquired an entire suite of them.

In the film, Day-Lewis plays a character called Hawkeye, an Englishman who was brought up by Native Americans. Determined to transform himself into his role as much as possible, the actor took it upon himself to learn how to live like his character, resulting in him picking up a wide range of skills.

Spending a month in the woods, Day-Lewis learned how to build canoes, track and skin animals, fight with a tomahawk, and he even practised firing and reloading a flintlock. In fact, he immersed himself in the role to such an extent, that he started carrying the gun everywhere he went - including Christmas dinner.

Just imagine the awkward conversation at that table...

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Contributor

Danny has been with WhatCulture for over ten years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. In 2022, he took charge of WhoCulture and has grown it into the biggest Doctor Who channel on YouTube, and one of the biggest Doctor Who communities on the web full-stop. He has been writing and video editing since his early teens, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers, off the back of a burning obsession with the Matt Smith era of the show. Like many his age, he first got into Doctor Who with the 2005 revival, but has since gone back and fallen in love with the classic years too. If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order, or to give you a random factoid about the making of Gridlock, Danny is the person to ask!