From a New Yorker profile of actor Jeremy Strong by Michael Schulman:
As it turned out, “The Ballad of Jack and Rose” would change his life. The film, directed by Rebecca Miller, starred Miller’s husband, Daniel Day-Lewis, as an aging hippie living on an abandoned commune. Strong got himself hired as Day-Lewis’s assistant for the shoot, on Prince Edward Island. Day-Lewis was already legendary for his immersion techniques: staying in character between takes, building his own canoe for “The Last of the Mohicans.” He arrived in Canada early and helped the crew construct the commune houses, since his character would have built them. (After he botched a window installation, the crew assigned him a dining-room table.) During the shoot, Day-Lewis lived in his own cottage, away from his family. Since his character wastes away from a heart ailment in the course of the film, he starved himself, eating a meagre vegan diet, and became so emaciated that Miller was alarmed.
The Ballad of Jack and Rose was filmed in Rock Barra, PEI in 2003.
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