Steven Spielberg’s LINCOLN Begins Filming In October

The 2012 biopic LINCOLN starring Daniel Day-Lewis is expected to begin filming this October in Richmond, Virginia.

The film will be based on Doris Kearns Goodwin’s bestseller Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, and will follow Lincoln’s leadership during the years of the American Civil War.

Spielberg told Empire Magazine “[The film] feels very much like a procedural. It shows Lincoln at work, not just Lincoln standing around posing for the history books. [He’s] arguably the greatest working president in American history doing some of the greatest work for the world.”

Spielberg hinted about the depth of the movie’s plot stating, “We start shooting in October… I was interested in how [Lincoln] ended the war through all the efforts of his generals, but more importantly how he passed the 13th Amendment into constitutional law. The Emancipation Proclamation was a war powers act and could have been struck down by any court after the war ended. But what permanently ended slavery was the very close vote in the House of Representatives over the 13th Amendment. That story I’m excited to tell.”

LINCOLN will star Academy Award winner Daniel Day-Lewis (There Will Be Blood/Gangs of New York) who is a trained method actor known to stay in character throughout the entirety of filming, even while not on the set. Due to this acting method Daniel Day-Lewis spends rigorous time preparing for his roles therefore taking on a new film only every 2-3 years.

The film is expected to be released in the fourth quarter of 2012 by Disney’s Touchstone Pictures division.