Who plays the villain Bill the Butcher in Martin Scorsese’s Gangs of New York?

Daniel Day-Lewis plays Bill “the Butcher” Cutting in Martin Scorsese’s Gangs of New York.

The 2002 historical epic is set mainly in New York City’s Five Points district during the 1840s and 1860s. Day-Lewis portrays William Cutting, a fictional nativist gang leader whose influence shapes the film’s central conflict. Leonardo DiCaprio plays Amsterdam Vallon, while Cameron Diaz plays pickpocket and con artist Jenny Everdeane.

Day-Lewis’s performance was widely praised and earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. The film itself received ten Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, but did not win any awards. Its production involved elaborate recreated streets and sets built in Rome’s Cinecittà studios.

Bill the Butcher is fictional, although the film places him within real historical tensions involving immigration, political corruption, gang warfare, and the New York City draft riots of 1863. The character should not be confused with real Five Points figures such as William Poole, known as Bill the Butcher.