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Daily Inspiration Quote by Daniel Day-Lewis

"I would wish for any one of my colleagues to have the experience of working with Martin Scorsese once in their lifetime"

About this Quote

Day-Lewis frames the compliment like a benediction, and that choice matters. He is not merely praising Scorsese; he is placing the collaboration in the category of formative life events, something you "have" the way you have a pilgrimage or a storm. The line is generous on its face, but it also quietly reorders the hierarchy of film sets: in an industry that runs on bragging rights and career math, he’s talking about experience as enrichment, not currency.

The phrasing does a lot of work. "Any one of my colleagues" widens the circle beyond fans and critics to the only audience that really understands the stakes: other actors. It’s an insider’s endorsement, delivered with Day-Lewis’s characteristic restraint. He doesn’t say Scorsese is the best; he implies the collaboration is so clarifying that even one encounter recalibrates your standards. The "once in their lifetime" clause is both humble and absolute: you don’t need repeats, you just need the touchstone.

Context sharpens it. Day-Lewis is famously selective, almost allergic to hype, which makes this read like a rare, carefully weighed statement rather than promotional noise. It also reflects Scorsese’s reputation as an actor’s director: meticulous, historically minded, obsessed with behavior and rhythm. The subtext is a small rebuke to the disposable nature of contemporary production. Work with a filmmaker who treats cinema like a moral and aesthetic project, and you come away changed. That’s the real compliment: not that Scorsese delivers performances, but that he leaves a mark.

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APA Style (7th ed.)
Day-Lewis, Daniel. (2026, January 16). I would wish for any one of my colleagues to have the experience of working with Martin Scorsese once in their lifetime. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-would-wish-for-any-one-of-my-colleagues-to-have-131595/

Chicago Style
Day-Lewis, Daniel. "I would wish for any one of my colleagues to have the experience of working with Martin Scorsese once in their lifetime." FixQuotes. January 16, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-would-wish-for-any-one-of-my-colleagues-to-have-131595/.

MLA Style (9th ed.)
"I would wish for any one of my colleagues to have the experience of working with Martin Scorsese once in their lifetime." FixQuotes, 16 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-would-wish-for-any-one-of-my-colleagues-to-have-131595/. Accessed 12 Feb. 2026.

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Daniel Day-Lewis

Daniel Day-Lewis (born April 29, 1957) is a Actor from United Kingdom.

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