- 2 weeks ago
THR’s awards analyst Scott Feinberg hosts a Q&A with Steven Spielberg, Daniel Day-Lewis and the cast and crew of ‘Lincoln’.
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00:05we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain that this
00:12nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom that government of the people
00:18by the people for the people shall not perish from the earth it is a great honor
00:26for me to be able to introduce to you and and moderate a Q&A tonight with a large sampling
00:33of the people who are most responsible for the film that we've just seen obviously first
00:38and foremost among them please welcome Steven Spielberg
01:08please now welcome the screenwriter Tony Kushner
01:23and now for our cast members first of all please welcome Lee Pace
01:40next James Spader
01:55next David Shrithern
02:09next Sally Field
02:23and finally Mr. Lincoln himself Daniel Day-Lewis
02:54the first question I'd like to pose to Mr. Spielberg is all about the
02:59I wonder if you can talk about the roots of your personal fascination with Lincoln and how a conversation back
03:07in 1999, so quite a while ago already, with Doris Kearns Goodwin sparked the idea of doing a film about
03:15him.
03:16Well, I think I forgot my long fascination with the 16th president, and I think that Doris reminded me of
03:26really how compelled I was by the mystery of what I didn't learn in school about Abraham Lincoln when she
03:32first met with me in 1999 to do a Millennium Project for CBS, and she was one of the consultants
03:40on the project, and I was asking her what she was currently writing, and she said,
03:43I'm writing a story about the Lincoln presidency, and that was a moment for me, just a bit of an
03:50awakening that suddenly, it's kind of like my childhood flashed before me, and I remember all the moments that Lincoln
03:57had meant something to me growing up in school.
04:00I don't know why. I have no idea why, of all the presidents we studied in elementary and high school,
04:05why this particular person stood out more than anybody else, but I think it was because he was really awkward,
04:11and looked like an outsider, looked like somebody I would be friends with, and it just didn't seem very presidential,
04:21and the things he did, his deeds were much stronger than his physical appearance would have suggested that he would
04:30have earned the right to be on Mount Rushmore,
04:33and the right to be on the money, and the right to have a memorial, and so many things named
04:37after him, so that was just really it, and then once Doris began to send me chapters,
04:43before the publisher got the chapters by the way, I realized that she was doing something that had not been
04:48done before, it was a really, really personal journey throughout Lincoln's presidency.
04:57And from what I've read, you knew very early on that you wanted Mr. Day-Lewis for Lincoln. I wonder,
05:05Mr. Day-Lewis, when you first heard about this, were you so sure that you wanted the job?
05:09No, I was hiding. I was both amazed and delighted and absolutely bewildered in equal measure that Stephen would even
05:25consider me for such a thing, but at that time,
05:28and it was actually some years before Tony wrote his version of the story, as much as I felt that
05:38could really be a wonderful job for somebody else,
05:43I didn't feel that irresistible tug into the orbit of the life of the man or the greater life of
05:53his world, and that came much later on.
05:57So, I didn't have to struggle with temptation, but I was just astonished that Stephen would invite me to do
06:03it.
06:04And Mr. Kushner, how did it first come to be that you heard about this project, and then arrived at
06:14the conclusion that it was not going to be the kind of movie where you could tell the whole story?
06:22You were going to have to hone in on a very select, brief portion of his life in order for
06:27it to ever be shown in a theater.
06:32The first time I heard about it was I had breakfast with Kathy Kennedy in, I think, 2003, when Angels
06:41in America was airing on HBO.
06:43And Kathy was in town and asked to meet with me, and I asked her, you know, what are you
06:49and Stephen working on?
06:50I'd never met Stephen. And she said a film about the murder of the Israeli Olympic athletes in Munich and
06:58a film about Abraham Lincoln.
07:01And I said, well, that's a very exciting project, and, you know, thanks for breakfast. And things happened.
07:09And I don't think, I've been trying to remember, I don't think we ever talked about Lincoln while we were
07:13making Munich.
07:14But then, yeah, but then about five or six months after Munich was released, Stephen called and asked me if
07:21I'd be interested in doing it.
07:23You know, Doris' book is a masterpiece. It's 700 pages. It's a four-way political biography.
07:30And it's the living definition of a book that isn't going to make a two-and-a-half-hour film.
07:35And the more I read about the Lincoln administration, the more convinced I became that you could take, and I
07:40don't think this is in any way an exaggeration,
07:42you could take any week of the four years that he spent in the White House and make a ten
07:47-part miniseries with no,
07:49I finally decided to do the last four months and wrote a screenplay that was 500 pages long.
07:54This is the first quarter of that.
07:57You know, I mean, it's just, it's a life that's so insanely packed with incredible dramatic incident.
08:06So, figuring out how to boil it down was something that Stephen and I struggled with for four-and-a
08:11-half, five years.
08:12Five years.
08:15And I don't, I'm approaching this somewhat chronologically, so I don't want the folks in the middle to, I am
08:20coming to you.
08:21I just want to ask first, Mr. Day-Lewis, another question here, which is that I understand when you signed
08:30on to do this,
08:32one of your, you sort of had a request that it be held off for a year.
08:36And I want to ask you and Mr. Spielberg, I know, well let me put it this way, another interview
08:40you had said that initially saddened you a little bit
08:42because I think you wanted to get going, but you ultimately found that it was really beneficial.
08:47And so I just want to ask both of you what the product of that year, what some of the
08:53benefits of that year were.
08:59Well, it's hard to describe a year, but just in a general way, I'm a very slow reader.
09:11And I had a lot of reading to do, and a lot of reading that I needed to do, a
09:16lot of reading that I wished to do.
09:19And then I suppose if you can divide any period of preparation into two parts, you sense that there is
09:30a line drawn somewhere,
09:32and it's not always known to you where you will come up to that line.
09:38But the line basically separates the objective experience, which would include learning,
09:45from the more subjective work of trying to grow towards an understanding of that life from one's point of view.
09:55And I also was grateful to have that time because I knew Tony was still working,
10:04and I thought it would afford us all a period during which we could discuss the ways in which the
10:11story was developing.
10:14But more than anything, it's just, you know, when I was fairly young, I figured out just for myself,
10:26and everyone finds a different way of doing things, but I like to do things slowly.
10:32I like to grow into an understanding of things, and I feel that most, the illusion that one creates for
10:41oneself finally is that the decisions make themselves.
10:44But you can only really have that illusion with time in my case, and I have a slow rhythm.
10:55Well, the year was at first, yeah, of course, I was disappointed because when Daniel committed, I said,
11:00oh my God, we'll be shooting in four months, and Daniel said, what do you mean four months?
11:04And he really told me that he needed a year to get ready and to read.
11:11But that year turned out to be a blessing, and it gave Tony and I a lot more time to
11:17delve more vertically into Lincoln
11:19and the minutiae, the details, which I think we celebrate. I think this film celebrates more.
11:26Of all the movies I've made, I think there's more details that I care about in this film than anything
11:30else I've ever done.
11:31And I think a lot of those details occurred the year we had to find them.
11:36And the other thing was it gave me time to cast 145 speaking parts. That's a lot of parts.
11:42That's more roles than I've ever had in any single movie until now.
11:45And it made possible for actors like David Straith Hearn, who always has a huge busy schedule.
11:53It made time for Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who plays Robert Lincoln, who was absolutely unavailable
11:58and would not have been able to play Robert had we made the film in four months.
12:02A lot of the actors who were not free during that time, but were still my first choices, became free
12:08because we waited a year.
12:10Once you had your Lincoln, you needed your Mrs. Lincoln.
12:14And Ms. Field, I've again seen you and heard you talk about the fact that it was a sort of
12:26you wanted to convince Mr. Spielberg that you were right for this part.
12:31You hadn't been in movies for a few years. And I know you there were some other reservations or things
12:38that may have come up.
12:39And I just wonder for you, what can you talk about how it did come together?
12:42Because it's a, I think, a beautiful story how it all worked out.
12:48Testing, testing.
12:50Thank you so much.
12:54So that little button does such a wonderful job on that machine, doesn't it?
12:59This is a long story. I'm going to try to make it shorter because we have so many wonderful people
13:06here to talk.
13:08Let's see how fast I can talk. He moves slowly. I move very, very, very, very, very fast.
13:14So, take my time. So, I've been watching for Mary forever.
13:22I felt always in my heart as an actress that there would be some, that there would be certain roles
13:29that are right for me.
13:30Mary was always one of them. They never really explored Mary at all.
13:35And I heard that Doris Kern Goodwin was writing a book.
13:38I heard she was writing a book on Abe and Mary at the time.
13:41It turned out to be Team of Rivals. I heard that Stephen had purchased it.
13:45I somehow let it be known that, oh boy, oh boy, would I be interested.
13:50He came to me in 2005, I think.
13:54Earlier.
13:55Was it earlier? And said, would I be Mary?
13:58And I was like, oh my God, yes, I'll absolutely be Mary.
14:01But in my heart, I thought, there's a lot of slip between cup and lip, as they say.
14:05And so many years had gone by and writers came and went.
14:10And then Tony Kushner came on board and delivered the most exquisite piece of writing perhaps I have ever read.
14:17And I went, okay.
14:19And then Daniel Day-Lewis came on board and went, in my heart, here comes the battle.
14:27The battle is a lot of obvious things.
14:29First of all, it needed to be.
14:31There needed to be this battle for Mary to be known.
14:35Both, I need to pull it out of me in this tenacious way.
14:39And Stephen needed to see that and be a part of it.
14:42And ultimately, Daniel was a part of it.
14:47Stephen thought he should walk away.
14:49He didn't see us together.
14:50I argued with him and said, you're wrong.
14:54And I said, please test me.
14:57He said, okay.
14:58The generous Mr. Spielberg tested me.
15:01It wasn't quite right.
15:04Daniel was off in his process, newly, and in Ireland, which is far away.
15:10I was in California.
15:13And so we couldn't ask him to come and be a part of this.
15:16I did it by myself.
15:18And Stephen said, I put you together with some film of Daniel.
15:21It just isn't going to work.
15:22And I said, God, thank you.
15:24Thank you for this chance.
15:25Then, the really good news is I didn't kill myself that day.
15:30Because Stephen called me the next day and said he couldn't get it out of his mind.
15:34That he walked around the lot all day.
15:37And also, he had talked to Daniel.
15:40And they had sent Daniel the footage and yikes.
15:46And he wanted to meet me.
15:48And Stephen said, this is a great idea.
15:50Let's all go to New York and meet.
15:53And so we were trying to make that happen.
15:55And then all of a sudden, they're calling me and saying, do I want the same hair and makeup people?
15:59And I said, for a cup of coffee?
16:01I, okay.
16:04No, it was that generous person number two.
16:09Daniel, I think, now they never told me.
16:11I'm surmising.
16:12They will never tell me what went on between the two of them.
16:16All of a sudden, Daniel was flying in for the day from Ireland to test with me on film.
16:23So that Stephen could see us together.
16:25And that's what we did.
16:25We met, early version of Mr. Lincoln, early version of Molly, Mary.
16:32And spent an afternoon doing some very long and very strange improv.
16:39I can't remember one single word we said.
16:42Probably, I talked a lot and you talked very little.
16:47And I said, thank you very much.
16:50This was an amazing afternoon and I'm terribly grateful.
16:53And I wasn't recording sound.
16:55Did you know that?
16:56You weren't?
16:57No.
16:58Oh, my God.
16:59I was brilliant that day.
17:00You can't believe how good I was.
17:04That is insane.
17:06Probably a very good idea, ultimately.
17:09I was recording sound.
17:13Oh, dear.
17:14Oh, dear.
17:16Anyway, I was driving home and my phone rang.
17:20It was Daniel and Stephen together on the phone.
17:23Saying, will you be our Molly?
17:26And so, I was.
17:29Thank you so much.
17:35One of the things, as Mr. Spielberg referenced, so many interesting parts in this film.
17:42But I wonder, and I want to pose this, if I may, as a group question.
17:48Mr. Schwithern, Mr. Spader, and Mr. Pace, you are all people who have starred in productions of your own.
17:56I've known many, some of the best of the last few years, the last decades.
18:02And yet, when you get a script that offers a smaller, a supporting part, but it's from a Tony Kushner
18:09script and directed by Steven Spielberg.
18:11Do you have to hesitate for a second, or do you say, I'm excited to be in regardless?
18:19Whoever, Mr. Schwithern, would you like to go first?
18:22I just, I think of all the great things that I've seen you in, and I just wonder if that's
18:27even, it crosses your mind when you see the material.
18:32No, it didn't, I mean, it was, you answered the question, yeah.
18:42Mr. Pace, Mr. Spader.
18:46Oh, I was, yeah, is this working?
18:48Have I got it?
18:48A button.
18:50Oh, yeah, thrilled.
18:52I mean, it was a call of a lifetime for me to get invited to the set.
18:57And to be on the set and work with all these incredible actors on this script, you know, with Steven
19:05Spielberg.
19:06Yeah, job of a lifetime.
19:08I learned so much, and yeah.
19:11I have to say that I saw Lee do an independent film with a wonderful director, Max Winkler, a film
19:19called Ceremony.
19:21And I saw two really amazing performers in the film.
19:25There were many, many good performers in the film, but I saw yourself, Lee, and I saw, I guess the
19:34other one was Jake Johnson.
19:37And so I began asking Max about this guy because Tony and I had an idea about Fernando Wood.
19:44That rather than have somebody who is spewing so much hatred and racism, you know, cast somebody in the part
19:53that is like Errol Flynn.
19:55And then have that stuff come out of the mouth of Errol Flynn.
19:59And does it make it any more or less acceptable?
20:02It was a kind of an interesting litmus test.
20:04And so we didn't go for an obvious person that would have twisted their face into the look of someone
20:11who has spent so much time, you know, with a black light in their heart.
20:19And Lee didn't test or anything.
20:21We just gave you the part.
20:23And first day of shooting.
20:25And we didn't even talk about the accent.
20:27He just gave you the part.
20:30I remember coming to set and kind of standing there in that, you know, the room was a little about
20:35this size, wasn't it?
20:36The Congress that we shot at the Capitol in Virginia.
20:40And, you know, kind of starting that big monologue.
20:42That was my first day working, wasn't it?
20:44And I was just like...
20:45And then Tony rewrote the monologue.
20:47And you had to memorize it in four minutes.
20:49Oh, I remember that too.
20:53So, once things got...
20:55Well, I would...
20:56I'm hoping Mr. Spader wants to add something, but I don't know.
20:59I guess not.
21:01I'm really the layabout in this bunch.
21:07I showed up at the last minute and just had more fun making this film than any in memory.
21:17with the most delightful people, many of whom are here tonight and many of whom are not.
21:25It really was just...
21:27I just wished it hadn't ended.
21:29And when I looped the film, I wished it hadn't ended again.
21:34And then when I saw the film, I called Daniel immediately and said that seeing him and Steven was the
21:40next call and told them both that seeing the film the first time, all it made me do is miss
21:47them so desperately.
21:49So, really, for me, this was just my absolute pleasure.
22:00I think, if I'm correct, this all was shot towards the end of last year, is that right?
22:07And over the course of four months and very long days.
22:13And I just wonder if you, Mr. Spielberg, can talk about the way that you dressed and addressed these folks.
22:20Because I think that both would be unconventional, not what you've historically done on your sets.
22:28And I just find it interesting if you could talk about why.
22:31Well, I think the, you know, the approach to this was, you know, to create a kind of, just a
22:40kind of womb of authenticity, you know, a room and a womb.
22:43And the Rick Carter sets were extraordinary and they were absolutely reproductions of the White House as it existed in
22:521865.
22:53Even with assumptions made about the color of the wallpaper based on research that we had all done and Rick
22:59had done, what the rugs looked like.
23:01And Rick just did an amazing job with just, you know, not a lot of money.
23:06I mean, this was not one of our hugely expensive projects.
23:11But the whole feeling for me was that, and I think a lot of this was tacit, it was unspoken,
23:19that there was such admiration for Abraham Lincoln among the crew and the cast.
23:24I didn't have to say a lot.
23:25I didn't have to give a bunch of ground rules about how we're going to conduct ourselves, comport ourselves in
23:30a different way that we may have comported ourselves on other movie sets.
23:34Which often are raucous and fun and, you know, and everybody, it's a family, it's sometimes even a bit like
23:39a circus.
23:41And in this case, I didn't have to say very much.
23:43Everybody came with a kind of reverence to the material, to Tony's script, to Daniel and what he's contributed to,
23:51you know, already a lifetime of contribution.
23:55It would have been anybody else's nine or ten lifetimes, what he's done.
23:59In the short span of years, he's been telling stories.
24:03And we all basically didn't speak.
24:08I mean, I set a tone in a way by deciding to call everybody by their character names and not
24:14by their surnames.
24:16So, you know, you were Mr. Wood.
24:20Tommy Lee Jones was Mr. Stevens.
24:23Mr. Secretary, I never called David Strathair on anything except Mr. Secretary.
24:29Sally, I called Molly or Mary Todd.
24:32And, of course...
24:33You called me Mrs. Lincoln, I think.
24:34And Mrs. Lincoln, too, when I was really...
24:36You were upset with me, then.
24:37Go ahead and say it.
24:39Yeah.
24:39Only that.
24:40I heard you yell Jimmy once from the floor.
24:44Yes, I yelled Jimmy.
24:45I lost my head, okay?
24:46One time I lost my head.
24:47And I yelled at Jimmy.
24:49I don't know why I did that.
24:51And, of course, Daniel, I called Mr. President.
24:55And I just simply came dressed in a regular nice suit every day.
25:00I didn't...
25:00I've read that I had Joanna Johnson put me in period costume.
25:04That never happened once.
25:06Not even for Halloween.
25:08That never happened.
25:09But it was nice because the thing that I will never forget,
25:13when we had a lot of actors in one space,
25:16and we asked the actors if they would just remain seated
25:19while we made a slight lighting adjustment,
25:21which sometimes takes 15, 20 minutes,
25:23and never gave any rules about how you conduct yourselves
25:26when you're sitting around waiting for Janusz
25:28to move the lights around.
25:30But no one spoke.
25:32No one spoke.
25:33No one talked about home life.
25:35No one talked about the 21st century.
25:37No one talked about politics today.
25:38Everybody just sat there very quietly waiting for the next shot.
25:43And I've never, ever had that happen to me on any set before.
25:46So...
25:47And that was throughout the entire production.
25:51And, Ms. Field, I wonder if you can share along those same lines,
25:55but sort of humorously, your communications with Mr. Lincoln were sometimes,
26:03did blur into the 21st century technology.
26:05And I just wonder if you can explain how some of your cell communications
26:10with Mr. Lincoln worked.
26:12Well, it's not really that odd, really, when you think about it.
26:16I did have, I too had quite a number of months, thank God,
26:19because he was reading books and I was eating.
26:24I had a lot of weight to gain.
26:27So, he was in Ireland.
26:29I'm in Los Angeles.
26:30There was no way for us to begin to form any kind of relationship.
26:35We knew that we would hit the ground running.
26:37This was a very tight budget.
26:40There would be no rehearsal time.
26:42You know, we didn't have the luxury of two or three weeks rehearsal.
26:44And so, he actually started, it was great.
26:48It was, I was doing a lot of research while I was eating.
26:53And I was reading a lot of Mary's letters.
26:56And in the language of the time, which Tony used so eloquently,
27:03you know, you want to try to think like that.
27:07And so, we, the only way we had to do that,
27:11in lieu of writing letters, which is how they communicated with each other
27:16when they were not together.
27:18And that would have taken a long time.
27:20The only thing we had other than email,
27:23and he doesn't email, which is okay.
27:28And you don't want to call.
27:30I'm in Los Angeles.
27:31He's in Ireland.
27:32Besides that, I hate talking on the phone.
27:34And I would have hated that.
27:36So, the thing that's left is to text.
27:38And it made total sense.
27:40And it was completely generous and lovely.
27:43Because it was a way to become slightly familiar with each other,
27:49using the language and being the characters.
27:51It made total sense.
27:53It would have been weird, had it not been the characters.
27:57I mean, really weird.
27:59So, it was lovely.
28:02And I have cherished every text.
28:06It's like writing a letter.
28:08Say it again.
28:10It's just like writing a letter.
28:11It's just like writing a letter.
28:11It was just literally like writing those short letters.
28:13I was just reading.
28:14And it was fabulous.
28:16Because I would have to really look at those letters,
28:19look at the language and try to, you know, use that in the text.
28:23I envisioned him writing his dot, dashing his off really quickly.
28:28Whereas I was like painstakingly trying to piece them together.
28:33If you dashed them off, lie to me.
28:39Mr. Spader, I think one of the things that people learn from your character is that Lincoln,
28:45who I think a lot of people learn or come to believe was beyond reproach.
28:53He was godlike, would never play politics even though he was in the political arena.
28:59In fact, that was not the case.
29:01And I know working from the research of Mr. Kushner,
29:04I just wonder if the two of you can talk about showing that side of Lincoln that was calculating
29:12and not necessarily in a bad way, but that's the way things got, you know, get done.
29:17And so I just wonder, you know, for you what that process of discovery was like.
29:27Lobbying was a practice that really started with the first Congress.
29:32But it was really practice.
29:36And it was still practice at this time as well.
29:39But it was certainly more by the seat of your pants and amateurish.
29:46And just the way life was at that time where people met in taverns and people,
29:51the president rode a carriage through the streets and greeted people in the streets.
29:56You know, it was just a little more amateurish.
29:59Lobbying certainly became a little bit more institutionalized near the end of that century into the next.
30:05But, you know, that's democracy at its very best.
30:12Discourse and argument and compromise and persuasion
30:17and as a means to the most perfect end,
30:24which happens to be what made this amendment worthy of making a film about.
30:32You know, I think it shows what, it defines what our democracy can be when it's working at its most
30:40active
30:41and with the most amount of argument and discourse and then compromise.
30:49And, Tony, take it from there.
30:54Well, no, I mean, I think that's something.
30:56I mean, you know, the idea that Lincoln wasn't a political figure is, you know,
31:01I mean, the reason that Doris' book was so important to us is that she's a political writer
31:06and a person steeped in the politics of Washington.
31:09And, you know, the book is a political life of Lincoln
31:14and an appreciation of his incredible skill.
31:16I mean, she worked for Johnson.
31:17She understood how, you know, important it is to have a president who knows how to work
31:24both in completely upfront ways and some behind the scene ways with Congress.
31:29So I will say one of the great joys for me during the shooting of the film is that I
31:36think a couple of days
31:37after I got to Richmond at the very beginning, I was told to call James.
31:42We'd never, I don't think we'd ever met or anything.
31:45And because there were all these scenes that were going to be shot without sound.
31:50They were part of a montage of the three guys, the three henchmen is what we call them, bribing congressmen.
31:57And James wanted to talk about what he would say in those scenes.
32:02And we actually sort of together, cobbled together this series of, I think, really, really funny scenes.
32:08Bits and pieces of them made their way into the screen.
32:10For those lip readers out there.
32:11Yeah, it's a, it's a, hysterical.
32:13But it was a, it was an enormous amount of fun.
32:15I mean, there was certainly speculation that much more provocative things happened in, in, in, in service
32:22of the passage of this amendment, which, because we, or Tony and Steven, I certainly wasn't part of this at
32:29all.
32:30But, uh, there was certainly speculation that much more, that votes were bought.
32:35And that cash exchanged hands.
32:37Yeah.
32:37There's certainly been speculation that those things happened.
32:41Uh, and, you know, there, there certainly were implications in the film.
32:46But that kind of thing was, was very active from, I think, Samuel Colt.
32:51Very early on was handing out pistols to try and extend his patents on his firearms.
32:57And that was going on from the very first Congress and is obviously going on today.
33:03I, I think I actually found a, a plot.
33:06We kept trying to work it into the movie and it kept getting pushed out because there just wasn't time.
33:11Where I think Mary, uh, Lincoln actually recruited Mary in this and she, uh, used her connection to Charles Sumner
33:18and the Senate to, uh, um, kill an anti-monopoly bill, uh, in exchange for the abstentions that you hear
33:27from the New Jersey Senators.
33:28Both of whom mysteriously didn't show up that day for the vote.
33:31And I think you could, you know, we'll never know because none of this is written down.
33:35But I have a suspicion that it was Mary's, uh, active involvement and, you know, didn't make it into the
33:40final cut.
33:42Well, after this, uh, four month immersion in, in 19th century, uh, life, when this came to an end, um,
33:52it must have been, uh, hard for everyone, but particularly I would think for you, Mr. Spielberg, you, Mr. Day
34:00-Lewis,
34:00to, to kind of come out of this.
34:02It's, um, and I just wonder, uh, you know, I've read, Mr. Day-Lewis, where you said that it's always
34:08hard to come out of it.
34:09That's partly why you've taken, uh, a few years between a lot of your projects.
34:13But for this one, um, can you talk about how it came to an end and, and was it difficult
34:19to say goodbye?
34:20Yeah, I think sometimes, um, it, um, it's been expressed in such a way as a little misleading
34:27because it's almost as if, uh, the implication is that some exorcism has to take place
34:34to allow you to go about your normal business, but it's not that at all.
34:39Um, I don't, I can't say for sure that's what accounts for my periods of time in between.
34:45It may be one of the things, but much more than that need to rid oneself
34:51is actually the reluctance to let go, um, and that really, um, seems to make complete sense to me.
34:59There's nothing supernatural about it. It's really, you know, one has explored a life
35:04as thoroughly as one has been able to, um, and the world, uh, uh, that surrounded that life,
35:11um, with a group of people very, very closely.
35:14One has gone to inordinate lengths to try and construct that illusion for oneself
35:19so that it might present, um, uh, uh, um, a believable, um, illusion for, for others.
35:27And, and therefore, there's enormous reluctance to, to move away from that
35:34because most of us do what we do, um, and certainly in the, in this case, I think without exception,
35:42sometimes there's a core group of you that are doing what you're doing
35:46because you're compelled to do it and you're not always surrounded by people
35:50that have the same degree of compulsion.
35:52But, but in this case, I felt that every single person involved, um, uh, was happy
36:00and felt nourished, uh, to be doing that work that they were doing.
36:04And yes, it's a sense of tremendous sadness to think that that part of one's relationship
36:10with that world and those lives has come to an end.
36:14But the beauty of it is that you go back to enjoy that world and those lives from,
36:18from a different perspective again.
36:21And Mr. Fieldberg, had you ever worked so closely with, uh, another actor on a film before?
36:26And, and, and, and having that come to an end for you?
36:30Well, I, I can't compare this to any other working experience you've ever had.
36:35Just every single level of Lincoln was, uh, unprecedented, uh, in, in, in, in my experience.
36:43But I will tell you that in the four months of shooting Lincoln,
36:47I actually made friends with Abraham Lincoln.
36:51And on the last, the last shot of the film at the end of Lincoln's life
36:56when he was at the Peterson house, um, sort of bent in half because he was even too tall
37:02to, to have his feet all the way out to the, to the, to the end of the bed.
37:08Um, and that was the last shot of the picture.
37:11Um, when Daniel, uh, when we all disbanded and we went back to our rooms
37:16and Daniel went back to his room and I, I went to thank the crew and, uh, you know,
37:24have some people stand up and be called out and take a bow.
37:28Um, I heard that Daniel wanted to see Tony and I, and we both went into his trailer.
37:33And, uh, he was there as Abraham Lincoln.
37:36But when we were finished hugging and all of our eyes were wet,
37:40Daniel, um, spoke to me as Daniel Day-Lewis.
37:44And, uh, the, the voice that you all hear tonight.
37:48And that's when I wept because that's when I realized that that was the last time I was ever going
37:52to be,
37:53you know, friends with, um, a person who I really came to believe was our 16th president.
38:00Um, and I have not asked him if he would do it again for my birthday.
38:15In two and a half weeks.
38:17But I'm not going to ask him that.
38:19Because he'll say no.
38:22Um, if we, if we can, I'd like to invite a few questions from the audience.
38:27And so, uh, we'll go to this person in the back.
38:29And, and just because we are recording, I will, uh, repeat your question if I can hear it.
38:34So please go ahead.
38:35Um, I'm just curious, um,
39:10I guess the, the, the primary question from Mr. Kushner and Mr. Stilberg,
39:15was there ever any consideration to, to using the vote as sort of a, a spine of the film
39:21and returning to it periodically while mixing in the rest of the narrative?
39:26Or was it always intended to culminate with that?
39:29No, it was always intended to be what, what, what you pretty much saw the, the spine of the narrative.
39:34Is, is the, the, is the, not only the acquisition of the necessary votes to pass the amendment,
39:41but also when to pass the amendment and when to end the war.
39:45And that is the huge weight that Lincoln balanced,
39:48the great balancing act of Abraham Lincoln in the last four months of his life.
39:52And the blood left on his hands because the vote, you know,
39:57it was necessary to abolish slavery before the war ended.
40:01And they abolished slavery and signed it into law February 1st.
40:06It hadn't been ratified yet, but it was signed by Lincoln February 1st.
40:10War didn't end for another three months.
40:12And that's a lot of blood on his hands.
40:14And that, that, that, that was a big sort of moral balance in the story.
40:18I mean, actually, when we first met with Daniel in Ireland, there were a couple of flashbacks.
40:24Uh, the vote was always at the end of the, uh, of the segment, uh, of the, of the movie.
40:30Um, there were a couple of, uh, small flashbacks to other things.
40:34And, and Daniel, um, was the person who said, I, I'm, do we really need to do flashbacks?
40:41Which immediately, we both agreed, let's get rid of the flashbacks.
40:45I mean, because there's a, there's a sense of being in the, in the here and now in the film
40:50that I think we were all consciously and unconsciously working towards.
40:53It's also the, the struggle to tell this story clearly when you have to sort of catch everybody
41:00in the audience up on the Alice of the Looking Glass world of the Democrats being, uh, reactionaries
41:06and the Republicans being a progressive party.
41:09And, and then, you know, two thirds, uh, majority needed to pass a vote in the, in the House
41:14and the Senate and all of those, uh, little specifics.
41:16And we worked all the way through this summer with Stephen sort of, you know, maybe we need
41:22a card here, maybe we need a, uh, a tweak here to try and make it really something that
41:27people could follow.
41:28And, uh, I think that in addition to the fact that we liked the way that it built to the,
41:32you know, the big basketball game at the end with this little team winning the state championship,
41:37uh, we also, um, I think it would have made what was already a formidable challenge of this
41:45fairly unfamiliar terrain even more difficult to follow.
41:48So we never considered that.
41:51Uh, there's a hand right over here. Yes?
41:55I'm still here telling the fascinating story, but I'm curious
41:58that the film revolution was quite well here.
42:02Uh, at what point did you emphasize your film on the second term if they are not trying to?
42:15Uh, just the, yeah, sure.
42:17Just essentially the question was, uh, I guess, making this film in these times, um, and with,
42:24I guess you could also note, uh, another president from, from Illinois, lawyer turned, turned politician,
42:32made his secretary of state, or made his political rival, his secretary of state,
42:36pushed controversial legislation through in his first term and, uh, and, and on and on and on.
42:42Uh, was there, was there consciousness?
42:44Actually knows how to write a sentence.
42:45Pardon me?
42:46A president who actually knows how to write.
42:47Right, right.
42:48Just, you know.
42:49So what, was that on, was that something that you were deliberately emphasizing?
42:53No, because the film was written, uh, during the Bush administration.
43:02Absolutely true.
43:03When, when we, when we were at the Kennedy Center Honors, uh, President Bush came over to me,
43:08and, and, along with Congolese Rice, and they had both, uh, devoured Doris's book,
43:13and they were asking me all about, uh, what, what part of the book we were gonna try to make
43:18into a movie.
43:19And at that point, we didn't have a hundred percent agreement on exactly what part of the story of the
43:25passage of the 13th Amendment we were going to tell,
43:27or even were we gonna tell anything about the Emancipation Proclamation.
43:32There were a lot of things that we were still juggling, but, um, it was interesting that they had both
43:37read the book and,
43:38and, uh, didn't quite know how to answer that question at the time.
43:42Uh, she read the book.
43:43Well, I...
43:47I don't know, but...
43:56It's okay.
43:58We'll go over here. Yes.
44:11So, what, what was, how did you arrive at the voice, Mr. Delis?
44:15Luckily for me, there are no recordings, um, of, from that time.
44:20But there is, um, a really amazing national archive of early recordings,
44:25and I think the earliest of them are probably around the turn of the, um, century 19, early 1900s.
44:33And, um, and I suppose, really, it's, you know, looking for clues, um, that's one of the sort of early
44:40stages of things,
44:42is to look for clues, um, and, uh, in this case, they're, they're, um, they're pretty clear ones,
44:49because the early influences in his life were the first few years in, um, Kentucky,
44:55followed by, uh, Indiana, and, um, and then Springfield, um, Illinois.
45:01And so, you know, it's, I managed to find some recordings from, from the counties in those three states,
45:08where he spent that early, very influential part of his life.
45:11But we don't really know, necessarily, that people in that part of the world, uh, spoke in exactly the same
45:18way as they do now.
45:19So, it's all really up for grabs.
45:22Um, and, um, and...
45:26What I tend to do, because, um, the voice is such a, whenever I'm working, it's such a deep personal
45:33reflection of, of character,
45:35that it's not something I would seek to find or choose to go looking for at an early stage.
45:41In fact, I never really consciously do.
45:44But I work my way, kind of, through, across that line, towards something.
45:49And at a certain moment, if I'm lucky, I begin to hear a voice.
45:53Um, the accumulation of, of, of, of what I understand about that life at a certain moment allows me to
46:02hear a sound.
46:04And it may well be the wrong one.
46:07If it is, generally, I'm stuck with it, because...
46:10Um, but, but then, that, that internal sound, the sound as it would be of your own internal monologue,
46:18then, if I, if I like, if I live with it for a bit, and, and that sound, I like
46:22that sound, it pleases me,
46:23then I try to reproduce it, which is a, that, that can become a problem in itself.
46:28Um, but, uh, that's, um, I know that's, probably, hasn't answered your question.
46:35But, sorry.
46:36We have, uh, time for two, last two questions.
46:39So, we'll go to this person over here.
46:41Gentlemen, go ahead.
46:42Yes.
46:43Uh, brilliant.
46:44So, really, even just out of the smallest detail,
46:46about the hundred and something extras of all parts of the world,
46:49you can tell that you love each individual's role in the past.
46:53But I'll ask you one question instead of off the topic.
46:56When are you going to make a Western?
46:57Uh, so the question is for Mr. Spielberg, when are you going to make a Western?
47:02Well, didn't you like Cowboys and Aliens?
47:07I, I, I don't say that sarcastically.
47:09I, I, I, I actually enjoy the film, and my company made that film.
47:12I didn't make the picture.
47:13My company did.
47:14But, uh, look, I've been looking to make a Western for a long time.
47:17Um, a Western and a musical.
47:18So, whichever comes first.
47:20I don't know.
47:22Gotta be the right one.
47:24And, uh, finally, let's go, uh, way in the back.
47:28Um, give somebody a chance.
47:30Or even up here.
47:31Yes.
47:31Go ahead.
47:32Yes.
47:37We got a, we got a, a gentleman up here.
47:40Yes.
47:40Go ahead.
47:41Thank you all for joining us.
47:43First off, and, uh, happy birthday.
47:45Uh, soon.
47:48So many different versions and so many different rewrites.
47:50You said you went through so many different sections of the story.
47:54And, you know, it doesn't feel like a lot of different pieces.
47:58It feels very complete.
47:59What were you looking for to get to that?
48:02If you'd have a, a question in mind that you're thinking about.
48:06And you're putting it all together.
48:08Was, was there a, a driving question that, uh, you wanted to answer as you tried to figure
48:13out how to approach the script, uh, Mr. Kushner, Mr. Spielberg?
48:16Well, I think the, the thing that, that was the most interesting part of any, uh, uh, let's
48:23say a Lincoln portrait is how do we want to see Lincoln?
48:27Do we want to see him as a monument already?
48:30Do we want to see him like a statuary?
48:32Do we want to see him as we expect to see him so famous that he's almost invisible?
48:38Or do we want to see him as a thriving, living, involved, enthralled human being with all of
48:45his faults and all of his, his, his flaws and, and his distance with one son and closeness
48:51to the other and, and, uh, irreconcilable love with, with and for his wife.
48:57And how do you do all that in a length of time that isn't a miniseries?
49:02And, and Tony and I felt that we needed to hang it on an issue so we could see him
49:06as
49:06a working president.
49:08We weren't interested in, in, in turning him into a deity.
49:11He's all, he's been deified enough.
49:13We were interested in bringing him off his, his marble pedestal.
49:17And rolling up his sleeves and getting the most important job that I think anyone has
49:22ever done with our constitution, which is to abolish slavery, you know, you know, once
49:27and for all.
49:28And, and because that happened to happen just before the civil war ended and just before
49:33Lincoln ended, it just seemed like this was the narrative force of history that drove
49:40us to follow precisely the historical record in being able to dramatize and humanize Lincoln
49:46all within a, a, a reasonable amount of running time.
49:50Yeah.
49:56I'll just add, I, you know, when the, the, the huge long script, uh, was January, February,
50:01March and April.
50:02And, uh, when I sent the whole monstrous thing to Steven, I thought that, that he was going
50:07to want to make the last month, which is when Lincoln went down to city point and was there
50:11for the end of the war and it's very cinematic and has boats on the river and not battle scenes,
50:18but the aftermath of battles and all sorts of really, uh, extraordinary visual things
50:22going on.
50:23And I, I was certain that the first part of the script, which was the fight for the amendment
50:27was going to be the least interesting.
50:29And Steven immediately said, that's my favorite part of the script.
50:32And so gradually everything else fell away.
50:36And it's been an enormous, I, this is only my second film and it's been an enormously,
50:40um, uh, eyeopening and even humbling experience that, uh, I, I didn't know what you were up
50:48to, uh, the whole time.
50:50Um, but you know, now that I see the movie, the, the, I, you know, this was the perfect story
50:55because it does give the possibility of seeing him in an enclosed space and, and doing things
51:02like putting wood on the fire and so on and the pacing of it and everything.
51:05It's just been, I, you know, he had the whole thing in his head, uh, the whole time.
51:11And it's, it's an amazing thing.
51:12It's why it's a great privilege to work with him.
51:15Thank you, Tony.
51:16But it was also on paper, please.
51:18Tony's being very kind, but this, this, this, this, you know, this was a script that we
51:24didn't want to change.
51:25Even when Tony kept wanting to rewrite the script, our big job was Tony, it's great.
51:29Don't change too much.
51:30Uh, because Tony's very fluid about things and he hears something and then he hears another
51:34way to say something, which was very valuable throughout the entire process.
51:37But, but this was, um, I think just prior to shooting, I, I would say just about a week
51:44before we started shooting, um, you know, we had a lock on the script and, and, and, you
51:50know, we all went to Richmond, you know, tremendously confident that, that we had a great thing in
51:57our hands, a great play, uh, that was going to be a movie.
52:00Uh, that was sort of always a movie, but, but there's so much literature in this particular
52:05story that we could then focus on other things because the words were there.
52:10We could then focus on character, on atmosphere, on lighting, on, on, on set dressing, you know,
52:16on, on just the whole feeling of hair and makeup and wardrobe.
52:19We could just focus on all of these amazing skills that combine to make any movie that
52:25we work on and that we see, um, possible.
52:28Not just successful, but possible.
52:31Well, all that is, uh, uh, left to say, I guess, is thank you guys so much for being
52:35here and for doing this and for a great film.
52:37Thank you very much.
52:38Thank you very much.
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