Daniel Day-Lewis Cast in Steven Spielberg’s ‘Lincoln’

Academy Award-winning actor Daniel Day-Lewis has signed on to portray the United States' 16th President Abraham Lincoln in the forthcoming Steven Spielberg-directed film, Lincoln.

Deadline reports that the movie will draw from Doris Kearns Goodwin's Pulitzer Prize-winning opus, Team of Rivals. Oscar-nominated playwright Tony Kushner, who's 1993 play Angels in America took home a Tony Award for Best Play as well as a Pulitzer Prize, has penned the script.

"Daniel Day-Lewis would have always been counted as one of the greatest of actors, were he from the silent era, the golden age of film or even some time in cinema's distant future. I am grateful and inspired that our paths will finally cross with Lincoln,” Spielberg said in a statement.

Filming is slated to get underway in autumn 2011, while the movie is scheduled to hit theaters in 2012.

by MacKenzie Wilson