Gangs of New York (2002)
What could lure Day-Lewis out of his five-year, self-imposed exile from showbiz? How about Age of Innocence director Martin Scorsese, finally getting the chance to film the project he'd dreamed of for decades: an adaptation of Herbert Asbury's history of the violent underworld of 19th-century Lower Manhattan? The film also starred Leonardo DiCaprio and Cameron Diaz, but as the bloodthirsty nativist Bill ''The Butcher'' Cutting, Day-Lewis stole the movie from them. In fact, his mustache stole the movie from them.

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