Santa Barbara

After an evening spent with Daniel Day-Lewis speaking about his life in acting, inside the Arlington Theater, actress Sally Field presented him the Montecito Award. Interview with Sally Field before she presented actor Daniel Day-Lewis the Montecito Award:

ME: You’ve been acting almost your whole life, and now at this point in your career you get this great role. What would you say about this role that stands out from past ones?

SALLY: I’ve had a lot of wonderful roles. I’ve had a lot of spectacular roles. I’ve been really lucky. And this certainly was right up there amongst of the best I’ve ever had, so I worked for it, it’s mine, so there it is.

SALLY CONT’D: When you’re in the heart of it as an actor you can’t stand outside of it. You’re just in it and you can’t stand outside saying ‘oh I like this or I like that’. That’s all. You’re just in it. You don’t have any distance. As Mary Todd she’s one of those strong women in history and I appreciated the history. And then you add Tony Kushner, Steven Spielberg, Tommy Lee Jones and Daniel Day Lewis, so it was also the cast that drew me to the role.

Here is what she had to say about her colleague and dear friend, Daniel Day-Lewis:

SALLY: Actors are story-tellers. We don’t use a pen and paper or paints. We don’t write the words or the music. Nor do we play with a musical instrument. Our only instrument is ourselves- our bodies, our voices, our imagination and our own history. We have different techniques and methods to try to create the illusion of other people’s lives, seeking to resemble someone else, to become someone else. And through us the story is told. Whether it was Frederic March, Spencer Tracy or Marlon Brando they were using themselves to interpret stories, characters, and explore what it is to be human. These extraordinary actors challenged the contemporary take on the craft of acting. I believe Daniel Day Lewis is doing that very same thing today. There are so many performances we have seen- ‘My Left Foot’, ‘The Last of the Mohicans’, ‘The Boxer’, ‘In the Name of the Father’, ‘Gangs of New York’, ‘There Will Be Blood’ and now ‘Lincoln’. His deep exploration of the characters he takes on changes his physical and emotional presence so thoroughly we the audience forget we have ever seen him on the screen before. It’s simply astonishing, as though he’s somehow wrapped himself up in silk, hung upside down from a tree and emerged another human being all together. And then he carefully and totally allows us, his audience, to connect to this other person. He never asks anything from us, he simply presents the character, and therefore tells the story. My mother was a working class actor. She never achieved the kind of skills she wanted but she understood and appreciated it. And she always said to me: ‘Sal, the camera is very powerful. Eventually, it sees who you are”. And if that is true then we have seen Daniel’s core, his integrity, his relentless commitment, and his intense concentration, his fearless, exquisite intelligence and his deep sense of humanity. As an actor I have been lucky enough to stand toe to toe with him, of sorts. In the heart of the battle where your fellow actor is your comrade in arms and everyone is boiled down to their key ingredients, you either know you’re on your own against the ever present enemy of mediocrity or you know your teammate has your back, would fall on the grenade if needs be. I refuse to believe that another actor can force a good actor to be better. That no one can give you. But then, I’m not sure. He gave me strength and a safe place to be dangerous, and he has my heart. There’s an old joke about actors: “How many actors does it take to screw in a light bulb? One actor to screw in and 450,000 stand around and say, ‘I could’ve done that’”. In Daniel’s case, it took one actor to screw in the light bulb, and everyone else on earth to say “How the holy hell did he do that?” It is my great privilege to present this year’s Montecito Award to Daniel Day-Lewis.

-Written by Vanessa McMahon

** Stay tuned for in depth with Daniel Day-Lewis coming next!

Daniel Day-Lewis and Sally Field at SBIFF. Photo by Benjamin Schwartz.

Sally Field as Mary Todd