5. My Left Foot
In the role which truly cemented him in the public eye as an acting tour-de-force, Day-Lewis portrayed Irish artist Christy Brown. Brown (who is a real person) suffered from such severe cerebal palsy he could only really move his left foot with any sort of control. As such, he was confined to a wheelchair. Naturally, when one is to play a character who is confined to a wheelchair, its taken as par for the course that you would spend a lot of time sitting in aforementioned wheelchair. Patrick Stewart did this rather well in the
X-Men trilogy. However, the crucial thing about acting is that once the camera stops rolling, and you are off-shot, you could break the illusion and get out of the chair. This thought didnt occur to Daniel Day-Lewis. For the time-span of shooting, he didnt just play Christy Brown, he
was Christy Brown, and if Christy Brown couldnt get out of a wheelchair, well, Daniel Day-Lewis couldnt get out of it either. And so it was that Day-Lewis sat in the chair all the time, constantly affecting Browns condition. The crew had to carry him everywhere, and the cast took turns spoon-feeding him. It pissed them off, but this was all part of the plan; Day-Lewis wanted to experience what it meant to be Christy, including the embarrassment of certain situations. He simply would not get out of the chair he couldnt break character, because thats just not how Day-Lewis works, even to the extent of physical injury. But how exactly could he injure himself? After all, he was only sitting everyone sits, and its not something to write home about. But its at this point where I remind you that Christy Brown didnt just sit in a wheelchair. Because of his condition, he was constantly hunched over in it. And if Christys going to hunch, then by crikey, Daniel will too. His commitment to posture meant he broke two of his ribs while filming. He simply sat down too hard, for too long, to the extent that he caused himself a painful physical injury. He could've quite easily stopped himself, gotten out of the chair and stretched for a bit Im sure nobody wouldve begrudged him that yet he just wouldnt do it. Its a good job he didnt his portrayal of Brown was nothing short of mesmerising, melding the extreme physical demands of the role with an unflinching depiction of a man who, behind the physical mask, was just as flawed as the rest of us. The performance netted Day-Lewis the Best Actor Oscar in 1989, an award Im pretty sure is worth a few broken ribs.