Daniel Day-Lewis did his ridiculous method acting thing in Lincoln, and it’s hard to imagine the movie without him, but did you know that he initially rejected the role? At the New York Film Critics Circle Awards (which, additional trivia, Armond White is a three-time former chairman of), Spielberg, presenting Day-Lewis’s best actor award, read the Dear Steve letter Day-Lewis sent him. That’s right, a letter. Like, through the mail, with stamps and ink and everything, just like in olden times.

Dear Steven,

It was a real pleasure just to sit and talk with you. I listened very carefully to what you had to say about this compelling history, and I’ve since read the script and found it in all the detail in which it describe these monumental events and in the compassionate portraits of all the principal characters, both powerful and moving. I can’t account for how at any given moment I feel the need to explore life as opposed to another, but I do know that I can only do this work if I feel almost as if there is no choice; that a subject coincides inexplicably with a very personal need and a very specific moment in time. In this case, as fascinated as I was by Abe, it was the fascination of a grateful spectator who longed to see a story told, rather than that of a participant. That’s how I feel now in spite of myself, and though I can’t be sure that this won’t change, I couldn’t dream of encouraging you to keep it open on a mere possibility. I do hope this makes sense Steven, I’m glad you’re making the film, I wish you the strength for it, and I send both my very best wishes and my sincere gratitude to you for having considered me. [THR]

Typical Daniel Day. “There is no choice. ‘Acting?’ Nay, for that you must call an actor. I merely choose to live my life a certain way, and if that manner of living happens to coincide with a story in a script, I consent to being filmed for a movIe. For one cannot ‘act,’ only live. I would never lie to my audience.”

Spielberg later had Tony Kushner re-write the script, Day-Lewis accepted, and the rest is history. Another piece of trivia, Daniel Day-Lewis actually acquired the “Day” in his surname after marrying former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day-O’Connor while preparing for a role as a judge. Maybe.

I just found this letter to and response from Bruce Lee – whose 72nd birthday would’ve been today -  via the always fantastic LettersofNote. I put Bruce Lee in the headline because he’s got the name recognition, but the real star of this exchange is Roland Lee. The turn of phrase “Furthermore, he picked up a hammer and hit himself all over” is brilliant, and I could read it ten times over and still laugh every time. I want that worked into my epitaph somehow. “He had four loving children, having retired after working for the Illinois Railroad Company for 42 years. Furthermore, he picked up a hammer and hit himself all over.”

As to the what/where of the letter, Shaun from LettersofNote says: “In the 1960s Bruce Lee answered a bunch of fans’ letters via Black Belt magazine. Many are reprinted in this book (‘Dear Bruce Lee’).”

Anyway, great letter, and happy birthday, Bruce. We’d trade that crusty old sack of farts Chuck Norris for you in a heartbeat.

LOL, what a slacker!

One of my favorite special-interest websites is Letters of Note, which curates all sorts of correspondence between prominent figures. Today’s offering was advertised as “This day in 2006, Steely Dan wrote to Luke Wilson and complained about his brother’s latest movie, You, Me & Dupree.”

My God, if they gave an award for intriguing news ledes… Anyway, it seems the acclaimed dad-rock pioneers wrote an open letter to Luke Wilson on their website, to complain about You, Me & Dupree, which, besides being a crappy Kate Hudson movie (that Owen Wilson also co-produced), had a tenuous connection with Steely Dan, on account of their song, “Cousin Dupree.” Is this making sense yet? Just read.

Hey man – it’s, like, Don and Walt, we’re the guys from Steely Dan, the group, we won those Grammies that time, maybe you recall? You know, “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number”? “Reelin’ in the Years?” “Hey Nineteen”? “Babylon Sisters”? Right, that’s us! So how’s it going?

Cool, we hope. We both really liked that “Bottle Rocket” movie that you and your brother did. We both thought it was way rocking! – even though the end was a little sad, you know, the overall thing was so great. In fact, it’s the only movie that you and your brother did that we can really agree on, the two of us… we usually like the same kind of things, but not always exactly the same things, if you can get to that. [...]

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The day after pretty much every Oscars telecast, everyone writes about how crappy the show was and what needs to be done to fix it. One suggestion that’s always popular is replacing Bruce Vilanch, probably because no one really knows exactly what he does other than wear dumb t-shirts, so it’s easy to blame all the bad jokes on him. However, Bruce isn’t one to let such assertions go unchallenged, as he proved this year when he responded to ThePlaylist calling for his replacement by logging in to point out that he wasn’t even involved with this year’s telecast. Which does make blaming him for how bad it was seem a little unfair (a little).

It turns out, it wasn’t the first time. Shortly after my last Vilanch post, reader Kyle sent me a link to a review he’d written of last year’s show in the University of Maryland newspaper, along with an email he received from Bruce Vilanch about it. Here’s an excerpt from Kyle’s piece:

What they’re looking for is a charismatic version of Bruce Vilanch, the man who has been head writer for the Oscars every year since 2000. Vilanch is exactly what the Academy wants in that he is not offensive, worships the Academy and really isn’t that funny. He takes no chances, not because he doesn’t have the talent, but because when you take chances, you’re attacked like Gervais has been.
As terrible as they are, at least MTV’s Video Music Awards and Movie Awards can be fun because, to some extent, MTV lets the show get a little crazy. People can swear and be a little drunk and it won’t be an embarrassment. It’s what’s expected.

And the following is the response he got from Bruce Vilanch (well, we don’t know for certain it’s Bruce Vilanch, but based on the email address, it seems extremely likely).

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If you’ve been reading this site long, you probably know by now that I’m a big fan of old letters. They’re a unique window into the mind of the public figures who wrote them, not to mention a novelty of a bygone era when people still passed each other notes through the mail and didn’t have internet porn and probably wore fancy hats on planes.  Today’s note comes from Roald Dahl, author of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, James and the Giant Peach, the Fantastic Mr. Fox, and about a billion other things. Apparently a group of students read his short story collection, “The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More,” and sent him some questions about it.

This was Dahl’s response:

Hello handsome Mr. Johnson and all the clever children who wrote me such lovely letters. I am afraid I am not allowed to answer your questions about Henry Sugar.

There is an old woman in our village with a beard. It’s quite long and black. I asked her why she didn’t shave it off. She said, “If I did, nobody would notice me.”

There is a farmer near here who breeds white mice. He fries them in butter for his supper. “They’re very tasty,” he says.

With lots of love from

Roald Dahl

I never read that book, but I checked out the Wikipedia page, and as far as I know, the woman with a beard and the mouse-eater are just some random sh*t Roald Dahl came up with off the top of his head and not references to anything, which is pretty awesome. “To answer your question, no, I’m not allowed to answer your questions. But here’s a story about ladybeards.” Three paragraphs and not a single reference to Churchill or Dostoyevsky? James Toback thinks you’re doing it wrong.

Another thing to take away from this is that Roald Dahl clearly used two spaces after a period. So, the next time you hear someone ranting about how it’s one space after a period and always has been and who learned the other way, you can simply point to this letter and tell them to suck your wiener. Roald Dahl said so.

[From this guy via Buzzfeed]