Leo does try to stay in character a lot. Daniel Day-Lewis stays in character through most of the shoot. Look at this behind-the-scenes picture from Martin Scorsese’s Gangs of New York to see the difference in their methods. In between takes, Leo is sitting on a rather standard and contemporary movie set “director’s chair.” Four feet away from him is Daniel Day-Lewis, who is sitting on a period piece chair that his character would have been sitting on.

That’s a physical manifestation of the differences between their acting methods.

During the production of Gangs of New York, Daniel insisted on only wearing clothes his character, Bill “the Butcher” Cutting, would have access to during that time period of the Civil War. He would always stay in character and insist on people referring to him by his character’s name (something he has done with most of his films, including Lincoln, where everyone called him Mr. President). He would stay in character and talk in his character’s accent between takes and shooting times. He even went around Rome (where the corners set of New York City was built) picking fights with strangers in character.

Because Daniel decided to wear a period-authentic coat made of materials only available in 1862, he actually came down with pneumonia and became very ill. He even refused to take modern medicine for it and allegedly came pretty close to seeing his life at risk. Daniel had learned that the real-life person his character was based on — William Poole — had suffered from a serious case of pneumonia that almost killed him. Daniel decided to roll with his symptoms and refuse the necessary contemporary medicine.

Once shooting starts, Daniel locks into his character.

Leonardo DiCaprio recounted Daniel’s method:

“It was like two days before we started shooting, and you know, we’d been saying, ‘Hi Daniel,’ ‘Hi Marty,’ ‘Good morning,’ stuff like that… I said, ‘Morning Daniel,’ and he went, [grunts]. I said, ‘Oh s—,’ game on. “I don’t think I said another word to him the nine months that we were there. It was just—he was ‘Bill the Butcher,’ and that was it. It was only until the last day of reshoots that we kind of looked at each other and laughed, you know, and like, cracked a smile.”

“I’ve done that to a certain degree, myself, but I think, ‘To each his own.’ And I think that his level of commitment is just so absolute, and he goes home in character… To a certain degree, I’m sure he has to kiss his child and his wife and go to bed, but that kind of level of commitment was inspiring again for me. I think as an actor, being able to witness that, and seeing the sort of heights of commitment like that was another stage of learning for me.”

Leo is known for staying in character on set — but not to the level of Daniel. Leo has that great intensity, but it seems that he prefers to turn it on and turn it off.

Whereas Daniel always tried his best to stay in any of his characters’ mindsets, accents, mannerisms, and all.

And, hey, he has three Oscars to show for it.

Like Leo said. To each his own.