The stories about Daniel Day-Lewis' intensity as a performer have become legendary, including the time he saw his father's ghost during a 1989 production of "Hamlet" and refused to leave a wheelchair while playing a man with cerebral palsy for "My Left Foot" (via Far Out Magazine). But his commitment to the character of Hawkeye in Michael Mann's "The Last of the Mohicans" was truly bizarre.
To play the white adopted son of a Mohican tribe, Daniel Day-Lewis learned how to survive in a forest, including how to trap and skin animals, make fires, and fire a gun (via Little White Lies). The actor went even deeper into the performance by bringing his gun everywhere he went before indicating that he was having trouble separating himself from the character. He confessed that after filming, he experienced hallucinations and claustrophobia back in civilization (via The New York Times). It was as if the Mohican tribesman had come to dominate the actor's consciousness.
Day-Lewis did recover but the challenging nature of his process may explain why he was so careful about choosing projects after a certain point. The actor once said "The one thing that I appear to have been given ... is the ability to concentrate on something I choose to give my time to." That can be a blessing and a curse when you're as dedicated as he is.
