My favorite Daniel Day-Lewis performance was performed by Sam Shepard eight years ago over a long lunch in The Meatpacking District, during which he went through a script he was attached to as the lead and methodically cut one line after another of his own dialog in between refills of black coffee and snapping at our server to stop trying to take his plates away before he was finished, pausing at one point to explain that he liked the character too much to let him ham it up à la Bill the Butcher, delivering an unforgettable example of overkill to illustrate his point.