Daniel Day-Lewis

Daniel can play anything and make you believe. In Gangs of New York, he chops meat, people, and has acting chops too. And a creepy fake eyeball with a patriotic symbol in it. And that weird walk that screams, "I had rickets as a child!" Can you imagine this man as anyone else? And yet he's played upper-class gents, a Puritan preacher, and a man who's so disabled he can't even speak. When Daniel stepped into Bill the Butcher's shoes, he became a Machiavellian mobster in ante-bellum NYC. He made the real Bill the Butcher (yes, he existed, though not quite as portrayed in Gangs of New York) come alive with malice and an iron will of domination.

If he hadn't had that whole rickets thing going on, or the fugly handle-bar moustache (can you sense I don't like mustaches much? See Michael Biehn) he MIGHT have qualified for the Hot Bad Guy list, but there is no shame in making the Cool Bad Guy list either, my friends. Bill, though an ignominious killer who has been known to kill a man whose back is turned, is the coolest of bad guys, because he tells us how much he admired a felled enemy and his brutal fighting ability. Honor among bad guys is everything, right?

Coolness: (That wacked out eyeball is a maverick gesture of coolness)
Badness: (He was prepared to groom his enemy's son to take over his empire; had a soft spot.)
Guyness: (Walks like a bulldog with menace in every move.)

Select Fansites

• A Celebration of Daniel Day Lewis

Dandelion

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