Day-Lewis channels a darker Daniel as Oscar favorite in “There Will Be Blood” and chats about life as brutal prospector Daniel Plainview

By Matthew B. Zeidman

HOLLYWOOD, CA (Hollywood Today) 2/23/08 – Daniel Day-Lewis has been lying low and mellow these days, not an easy thing for him to do if you’ve seen the primal human rage that bubbles over into his unforgettable role as a beyond-greedy oil man in “There Will Be Blood.”

He’s relaxed and chatting a bit now that the Oscar votes are all in and tallied for tomorrow’s Academy Awards, it doesn’t pay to be a flashy front-runner in this talent contest. After all, he dedicated his prize at the Screen Actors Guild Awards to the late Heath Ledger, and kept the focus off himself.

But truth be told, his controlled burn performance will be a staple in acting classes for decades, sort of Citizen Kane meets Brando in the “Stella” scene in “Streetcar named Desire.” We’ve all seen actors that scream or cry on cue – but how many can make the veins on their forehead pop out in purple fury? Kids, don’t try this at home, this man is a professional.

So much so it scared the parents on the set of TWBB. Day-Lewis has become well known for his portrayal of complex and challenging characters, such as merciless gangster Bill “The Butcher” Cutting in 2002’s “Gangs of New York.” In fact, he’s become so synonymous with the characters he plays that young costar Dillon Freasier’s mother almost pulled him from the production of Oscar contender “There Will Be Blood.”

“She went and got ‘Gangs of New York’ and was absolutely appalled at the thought she was releasing her dear child into the hands of this monster,” Day-Lewis told Hollywood Today. “There was a flurry of phone calls, and somebody sent a copy of ‘The Age of Innocence’ to her, and apparently that did the trick.”

In “There Will Be Blood,” Freasier plays the role of H.W., the adopted son and business partner of Daniel Plainview, a ruthless California oil prospector in the late 1800s and early 1900s portrayed by Day-Lewis. Though based on the 1927 novel “Oil!” by famous muckraker Upton Sinclair, the film is less about the love of oil and money and more about the multifaceted and tumultuous relationship between a boy and his father.

“There’s a real connection between those two. It’s not pure exploitation,” Day-Lewis explained. “The problem is Plainview has no understanding of what the responsibilities of a parent are. He just doesn’t know how to deal with this damaged creature who’s a child. He’s a friend and a partner, but he doesn’t know how to take care of him as a father. He has no means of knowing that.”

Despite his impressive acting experience, Plainview’s dubious nature wasn’t at first easy for Day-Lewis to interpret. “The challenge, I dare say, is the same as it always is, which is just to try and discover a life that isn’t your own, and Plainview, as he came to me in [Paul Anderson’s] beautiful script, was a man whose life that I didn’t understand at all. It was a life that was completely mysterious to me, and that unleashed a fatal curiosity, which I had no choice but to pursue.”

Tomorrow will tell if Day-Lewis’ pursuit of Plainview was a worthwhile one in the eyes of Academy voters as he is heavily favored to win the award for Best Actor at the 80^th Academy Awards, and “There Will Be Blood” has also been nominated for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing and Best Sound Editing. In the eyes of most critics, however, Day-Lewis has struck oil with or without the golden statuette.