Bringing "Lincoln" to life

The following script is from "Lincoln" which aired on Feb. 10, 2013. Lesley Stahl is the correspondent. Ruth Streeter, producer.

With the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, we're going through another Abraham Lincoln revival. Not that interest in him ever really fades: there've been close to 16,000 books written about him and now, Steven Spielberg's movie "Lincoln" which has been nominated for 12 Academy Awards.

The film is filled with things about our 16th president that we -- who aren't Lincoln scholars -- didn't know. It's Daniel Day-Lewis, whose been nominated for an Oscar for best actor, who brings the great man to life.

[Lincoln: I can't listen to this anymore. I can't accomplish a goddamn thing of any human meaning or worth until we cure ourselves of slavery and end this pestilential war.]

Daniel Day-Lewis: I never, ever felt that depth of love for another human being that I never met. And that's I think probably the effect that Lincoln has on most people that take the time to discover him.

After agreeing to take the part, Daniel Day-Lewis spent a year reading and doing research into Lincoln the man.

Daniel Day-Lewis: He does feel as if he's carved in stone, when you first approach him, because of the way he was as a man. As you begin to discover him, it's almost as if he welcomes you in.

[Lincoln: Tell us the news from the Hill.

Ashley: Ah, well the news...

Lincoln: Why for instance is this thus, and what is the reason for this thusness.]

So much about Daniel Day-Lewis' portrait rings true to the man including things most of us didn't know: like what Lincoln sounded like.

Daniel Day-Lewis: There are numerous references to him having a high-pitched voice.

Lesley Stahl: Did that influence you?

Daniel Day-Lewis: It's a clue, I suppose. All clues are potentially helpful.

[Lincoln: And come February the first, I intend to sign the Thirteenth Amendment.]

Doris Kearns Goodwin: That's definitely the way people who heard him speak at the time said he spoke. So somehow he mastered that voice.

Even Lincoln historians, like Doris Kearns Goodwin, who was a consultant on the movie, say the portrait -- down to the high voice -- was eerily authentic because of Daniel Day-Lewis' method acting.

Doris Kearns Goodwin: Steven told me later that he never came out of that voice until after the filming was over.

Lesley Stahl: So the whole time they were filming he stayed in character - which is his method?

Doris Kearns Goodwin: Absolutely.

"Steven" is Steven Spielberg the director, who decided that the movie would be only about the last four months of Lincoln's life when -- worried that the Emancipation Proclamation would be voided after the war -- he pushes for passage of the 13th Amendment to end slavery once and for all.

Steven Spielberg: What he was seeing was that the war was going to come to a close and once the war was over he would have a snowball's chance in hell to pass this. He needed to get this thing through with great haste.

Here's something most of us didn't know: Lincoln was a hardball, down and dirty kind of politician. To get the amendment passed, he used ruthless, even deceptive tactics.

Lesley Stahl: Lincoln, our great, great hero, was a great horse trader and did get his hands dirty.

Steven Spielberg: At the same time it was noble and grand, but it was also dark and murky which is sometimes--

Lesley Stahl: A little scummy.

Steven Spielberg: -- what all politics are.

Lesley Stahl: But they were buying votes.

Steven Spielberg: There's no money involved. They were trading administration jobs called patronage jobs, to get a yes vote to abolish slavery.

[Seward: But we can't buy the votes for the amendment. It's too important.

Lincoln: I said nothing of buying anything. We need 20 votes was all I said. Start of my second term, plenty of positions to fill.]

Lincoln did everything in the politician's handbook to get the amendment passed: cajoled, arm-twisted, negotiated and he bullied his cabinet.

[Lincoln: Buzzard's guts, man. I am the president of the United States of America, clothed in immense power. You will procure me these votes.]

And meanwhile the war, the Civil War, was continuing to take the ever-mounting number of lives which Lincoln saw with great guilt.

The scene in the movie when he rides through the aftermath of the battle of Petersburg is heartbreaking.

Lesley Stahl: Did that happen? Did he really go to the battlefield?

Doris Kearns Goodwin: Lincoln actually went to the battlefield about a dozen times during the war. He needed to walk amidst the thinning ranks of the soldiers. He physically felt every life that was lost was on his soul, on his heart.

[Lincoln: Some weariness has bit at my bones. I've never seen the like of it before. What I've seen today.]

What saved Lincoln during the war, and throughout his life, was his sense of humor and the stories he loved to tell that he often enjoyed more than his audience.

[Lincoln: I heard tell once of a Jefferson City lawyer who had a parrot that waked him each morning crying out, "Today's the day the world shall end, as Scripture has foretold." And one day the lawyer shot him for the sake of peace and quiet, I presume. Thus fulfilling, for the bird at least, it's prophecy.]

Lesley Stahl: One of the things that I loved in the movie, several times, where he'd start-- you start telling a funny story in almost inappropriate moments.

Daniel Day-Lewis: Right.

Lesley Stahl: And everybody rolls their eyes, "Oh God, here he goes again--"

Daniel Day-Lewis: Yea, Stanton, his secretary of war, was always apoplectic. And that is known, that's a historical fact, that Stanton just couldn't stand him telling stories.

[Lincoln: There is one Ethan Allen story that I'm very partial to.]

Stanton: No, you're going to tell a story. I don't believe that I can bear to listen to another on of your stories right now.]

Lesley Stahl: Was he just a supremely confident man, or was it that he wasn't a confident person?

Doris Kearns Goodwin: It's a mystery in a certain sense, because he is, at one level, he's extremely confident. I think from the time he was young he knew that he was in some sense a genius. But when he was young he was so worried that opportunities would never allow him to exercise his talents. And he was hugely ambitious. He wanted to be remembered for having done something that would stand the test of time. So boy, has that been achieved -- saving the union, ending slavery, and living forever in history. Pretty good.

Spielberg went to great lengths to make his movie look as historically accurate as possible: here's first lady Mary Todd Lincoln; here's Sally Field who put on 25 pounds to play the part. This is abolitionist Thaddeus Stevens and this is Tommy Lee Jones in the role. And here's Secretary of Ear Edwin Stanton --- played by Bruce McGill. And rooms in the White House were recreated. Spielberg went out and found first editions of books Lincoln read.

Lesley Stahl: I heard the same rug. By the same, I mean, it looked the same. The same books.

Steven Spielberg: Same wallpaper. Same books.

Lesley Stahl: Same paintings.

Steven Spielberg: And the watch that Lincoln carries on him that you hear ticking sometimes. The museum allowed our sound designer to record the actual ticking of Lincoln's actual watch. So whenever you hear the ticking, that's the same ticking that Lincoln heard 150 years ago.

Lesley Stahl: I understand you wore a suit for this shoot.

Steven Spielberg: I felt naked without one I've never worn a suit before. I think I wanted to get into the role, more than anything else, of being part of that experience. 'Cause we were recreating a piece of history that we hope will stick around for a while. And I wanted to feel like I was a part of that recreation. And so I didn't want to look like the schlubby baseball cap wearing 21st century guy.

In reaching to portray the real Lincoln, the movie doesn't just deal with him as president. It delves into his personal life, and his tormented relationship with his wife.

Doris Kearns Goodwin: He was troubled by her, he was challenged by her, he was hurt by her, all of those things together.

[Lincoln: Your grief, your grief. Your inexhaustible grief.

Mary: How dare you throw that up at me.

Lincoln: And his mother who wouldn't let him near her because she was screaming from morning to night.]

Lesley Stahl: Did they fight like that?

Doris Kearns Goodwin: Yeah. Oh, there were real fights.

Lesley Stahl. "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?"

Doris Kearns Goodwin: Yeah.

[Lincoln: For everyone's god damn sake. I should've clapped you in the madhouse.

Mary: Then do it. Do it. Don't you threaten me, you do it this time. Lock me away.]

Lesley Stahl: When the movie starts their second child has already died, Willie. And she has been in the deepest of mourning. As I had heard, she basically closeted herself upstairs in the White House and is this true, Doris, stopped mothering the younger child, Tad?

Doris Kearns Goodwin: The most terrible thing that Mary did after Willie died was she couldn't bear being with Tad, her youngest son, because he reminded her of Willie's absence. It's as if both Willie and Tad died after Willie died. Lincoln had to become both mother and father to Tad after Mary turned away. And he had to take over not only the country, in leading the country, but take over that little kid at the same time. What you see are the kinds of gestures that are so loving. When he lies down next to him in the fireplace. When he carries him to bed at night.

[Tad: Papa.

Lincoln: Hmm?

Tad: Papa, I wanna see Willie

Lincoln: Me too, Taddie, but we can't.

Tad: Why not?

Lincoln: Willie's gone. Its three years now, he's gone.]

The four years of the war took a toll on Lincoln. You see can see that he aged -- as does Daniel Day-Lewis in the course of the movie. He grows wearier. He hunches over more. His distinctive walk seems to slow.

Doris Kearns Goodwin: It was almost as if his gaunt frame needed oiling," people said. And he would walk as if he were walking over a difficult field and his leg would come up and go down in a very uncomfortable way. One of his friends said, "He looked like a laborer coming home after a hard day's work." That the-- somehow the weight of the world was felt in that walk.

Lincoln: Am I in trouble?

Slade: No sir.

Lincoln: Thank you Mr. Slade.]

One of the most poignant scenes in the movie comes near the end. It's April 14, 1865: Lincoln is leaving the White House for Ford's Theater.

[Lincoln: I suppose it's time to go, though I would rather stay.]

Doris Kearns Goodwin: There is something about the emotional connection that you develop with this man, about the trial that he went through, about this extraordinary moment in our country's history and, somehow, I ended up with affection as well as respect for him. And in the end, probably real love.

Lesley Stahl: You've said when you-- one of the sad things about the end of a movie is that you have to leave that character. Did Lincoln stay with you after?

Daniel Day-Lewis: Oh yeah. I wish he'd stay forever, really. I suppose what you miss is the pretense of seeing the world, understanding the world through their eyes, cause it's just a pretense, it's a game. But, yeah, I missed him a lot.