Daniel Day-Lewis admits that being a perfectionist isn’t so great. He says that being a perfectionist means dedicating yourself to a life of disappointment.
“I guess you could say I’ve dedicated myself to a life of disappointment because that’s the luck of anyone that seeks perfection,” Daniel told Parade magazine. “But you get used to disappointment — you’d better if you work in any creative form of expression.
“On the other hand, I think the interplay between hope and disappointment is what keeps you going in a way. You need that disappointment. Otherwise, would you ever get out of bed?”
“I think throughout my life, long before I became an actor, I was drawn toward people who seemed quite mysterious to me,” Lewis added. “As a kid, I was drawn toward people who belonged to what appeared to be other worlds, worlds where they lived by different rules. I grew up in England, which is a class-reverent society where the division between upper and lower are very clear. My fascination was always with what lay on the other side.
“I did grow up in a life of privilege and I rebelled. That may be why I was a savage for so many years of my life. I spent a lot of time getting into trouble and trying to get out of it and seeing the efforts that other people had to make to get me out of it. I was unruly.
“If I’d had to become a member of any party at that time, it would have been the Anarchists probably. Luckily, I was surrounded by very understanding people at a liberal arts school where I spent the last few years in high school. They kind of helped me to see things a little differently.”
