Why Daniel Day-Lewis refused to take on ‘Schindler’s List’
Throughout a genuinely extraordinary career in which he has proven time and time again that he is one of the greatest actors of all time, Daniel Day-Lewis has invariably delivered some of the most intense character studies in the history of film. Along the way, however, he has naturally had to turn down countless roles.
One of the higher profile movies that Day-Lewis rejected was, in fact, Steven Spielberg’s 1993 Holocaust drama Schindler’s List, widely considered one of the director’s best. Starring Liam Neeson as Oskar Schindler, the German businessman who saved over a thousand Jews from their death during World War II, the film is a genuine classic.
However, Neeson was not always set to play Schindler in perhaps his best-ever performance, as Day-Lewis was once considered to play the iconic role. In fact, it was only when Martin Scorsese was set to direct Schindler’s List rather than Spielberg that Day-Lewis had been attached to the project.
“I thought that would be something very interesting to do,” Day-Lewis once told The New York Times. “But then the project went to Spielberg.” Evidently, Day-Lewis had been drawn to working with Scorsese, who was fresh off GoodFellas, so much so that when Scorsese moved onto The Age of Innocence, he was there at the front of the queue for a role.
“When I met Martin at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, I wanted to pick him up and cuddle him,” the actor noted. “He is a mighty man, and when he asks you to do something, you want to do it. I was struggling to escape from English drawing rooms, but because of Martin, I accepted the role in The Age of Innocence.”
Spielberg had been attached to Schindler’s List since the 1980s but always felt it was a monumental challenge. The project changed hands to Scorsese, whom Spielberg thought would do a good job of with his truthful violence, but the director felt that he was missing out on something significant as soon as he gave it to Scorsese.
Of course, Day-Lewis did go on to perform for Spielberg in Lincoln, but it took the convincing of Leonardo DiCaprio to bring the actor around to the project. Having already turned Spielberg down for Schindler’s List, there was a sour taste in the air between the two, one that would gladly be resolved with a few conversations.
“I was having dinner with Leonardo DiCaprio, who is a family friend of myself and my wife and he was over at our house and said, ‘What is happening with Lincoln?’ And I told him the whole story with Daniel, about how he had turned me down many years ago,” Spielberg once told HuffPost.
DiCaprio went and had a word with his fellow actor, and soon enough, the project was moving forward, with Spielberg noting, “The next day Leo called me in the office and gave me Daniel’s cell phone number. Leo had called Daniel and said, ‘You have just got to talk to this guy.’ And that’s what started it rolling.”
