Daniel Day-Lewis is set to play President Abraham Lincoln in Steven Spielberg’s upcoming biopic.

Previously there had been rumors that Liam Neeson would take on the role of the truth telling president but it seems that Spielberg has settled on Day Lewis. Huffington Post reported that Spielberg was “determined to find an actor from across the pond to play the penultimate American president.”

According the Entertainment Weekly the movie will begin filming next fall and is set for release in fall 2012.

The move is based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Doris Kearns Goodwin’s book “Team of Rivals”.

A source told Entertainment Weekly that the movie was likely to focus on “the political collision of Lincoln and the powerful men of his cabinet on the road to abolition [of slavery] and the end of the Civil War”.

Day Lewis, an infamous method actor, has reportedly already taken a tour of the historic sites in Illinois and has begun preparing for the role.