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Photo: Chloe · CC BY 2.0 · via Wikimedia Commons Photo shows actor Daniel Day-Lewis (2008)
Bill "The Butcher" Cutting
Daniel Day-Lewis's Five Points gang boss wears a waxed, upturned handlebar, a glass eye, and a stovepipe hat — the most terrifying grooming in Manhattan.
- Actor
- Daniel Day-Lewis
- Film
- Gangs of New York
- Year
- 2002
- Medium
- Movie
- Style
- Handlebar
- Fan Votes
- 0 legendary · 0 meh
Why Bill "The Butcher" Cutting's Mustache Matters
Bill the Butcher is one of cinema's great villains, and his mustache is a weapon in its own right. Daniel Day-Lewis's nativist gang lord in Martin Scorsese's Gangs of New York (2002) sports a long, waxed handlebar that curls up and out at the tips, paired with a glass eye emblazoned with an American eagle and a wardrobe of loud checks and stovepipe hats.
The look is rooted in mid-19th-century New York, when elaborate mustaches were a mark of status and swagger, and the film's costume team won deserved acclaim for it. On Day-Lewis, the handlebar reads as both dandyish and deadly — every twist of the tip feels like a threat.
It earned Day-Lewis an Oscar nomination and cemented the handlebar as the go-to mustache for period villains.
- Daniel Day-Lewis was nominated for the Best Actor Oscar for the role.
- The character is loosely inspired by William Poole (1821–1855), a real New York gang figure known as "Bill the Butcher."
- Day-Lewis reportedly stayed in character between takes, sharpening knives and speaking in Bill's accent.
- The film's enormous Five Points set was built at Cinecittà Studios in Rome.
How to Grow the Handlebar
The grand champion. Curled at the ends, waxed to the heavens, and absolutely not sorry about it.
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