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Links to Lincoln

UVA's contributions to Spielberg's latest film

Leslie McDonald, art director, and Rick Carter, the film's production designer, on the set of Lincoln

When actor and UVA drama professor Richard Warner was cast as U.S. Rep. Homer Benson in Steven Spielberg's Lincoln, he grew his own beard and sideburns for the role. "Most of the beards you see in Lincoln are real. [It was] the most amazing array of beards that I have ever witnessed on a set," he says.

Warner is not the only UVA name that appears in the film's credits. Lance Lemon (Col '11) played an African-American Union solider in a re-creation of a battle scene near Powhatan.

Leslie McDonald (Arch '09), a Hollywood art director and production designer currently teaching a studio class in the School of Architecture, was one of the film's three art directors.

Most of Lincoln was shot in and around Richmond, Va., and McDonald staged the Richmond Capitol building to look like the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., as it appeared in Lincoln's time.