9 Times Method Actors Actually Forgot Who They Really Were

8. Daniel Day-Lewis Fought Complete Strangers Off-Set As Bill The Butcher

In real life, a place where Daniel Day-Lewis has spent precious little time in his 58 years on Earth, the world's only treble Oscar winner is actually a mild-mannered Englishman and happily married father-of-three. But when he sets his mind to pretending to be someone else, Day-Lewis can become anyone he strives to be, even if that other person is all the way at the other end of the behavioural spectrum.

Martin Scorsese's Gangs Of New York saw Day-Lewis return to acting after a five year hiatus, and - like a recovering crack addict suddenly giving in to his cravings after years of being clean - threw himself at the method like never before. He spoke with Bill the Butcher's accent on and off the set, trained as a butcher, almost died after he refused modern medicine to treat his pneumonia, and - by his own account - walked around Rome in character fighting strangers. "I will admit that I went mad, totally mad", Day-Lewis later said of scrapping with locals around Gangs Of New York's Italian location.

The Butcher was, according to Day-Lewis, "not so good for my physical or mental health". Considering Day-Lewis had learned to fight professionally for his previous film, it probably wasn't so good for the physical health of the people of Rome, either.