Photo of Daniel Day-Lewis sporting “Lincoln” beard surfaces

Steven Spielberg's highly-anticipated biopic is currently shooting in Virginia.

Daniel Day-Lewis has always been known as one of the best character actors of our generation, but he truly has transformed into his role for Steven Spielberg’s upcoming film “Lincoln.” The first image of him in costume as Abraham Lincoln has hit the web, and — though we never met the 16th President of the United States in person — Day-Lewis looks strikingly accurate to every depiction we’ve seen of the man.

Of course, the image is far from an actual picture from the set. In fact, the image was snapped by local Virginia Twitter user Michael Phillips, who looks like he caught the actor during a lunch break. That, or Lincoln had a penchant for jeans and turtlenecks that we didn’t know anything about.

“Lincoln” is based on the best-selling nonfiction novel “Team of Rivals” by Doris Kearns Goodwin, who also helped adapt the script. The film follows the life of the former president as he rose in politics and spearheaded the Civil War. The movie also stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Tommy Lee Jones, James Spader, Lee Pace, Sally Field, Jackie Earle Haley, David Strathairn and John Hawkes. It is due in theaters by late 2012.

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