Two-time Oscar-winning actor, Daniel Day-Lewis, has reached a deal to play Abraham Lincoln in Steven Spielberg’s biopic about the 16th president of the United States.

Several false starts and glitches cast doubt on whether the film would ever be made. But Friday’s announcement that the notoriously fickle method actor would star as the Great Emancipator put to rest any question that the movie is a go.

“Daniel Day-Lewis would have always been counted as one of the greatest of actors, were he from the silent era, the golden age of film or even some time in cinema’s distant future. I am grateful and inspired that our paths will finally cross with Lincoln,” Spielberg said in a statement.

Spielberg will direct the film for DreamWorks from a script penned by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Tony Kushner, which is adapted from Doris Kearns Goodwin’s best-selling book, “Team of Rivals.”

The role of Lincoln had long been saved for Liam Neeson (“Taken,” The A-Team”) but the actor, 58, has a had a flurry of work recently preventing him from striking a deal, and has said he feels he’s too old to play the iconic figure (who was 56 when he was assassinated) anyway.

Day-Lewis has become infamous for turning down premier roles, and generally prefers to stay out of the Hollywood spotlight. His most recent big screen foray was last year’s box office disappointment, the musical “Nine.” Before that was perhaps the most memorable role of his career, an Oscar-winning turn in P.T. Anderson’s “There Will Be Blood.”

Shooting is set to begin in Fall of 2011 with a release tentatively scheduled for the fourth quarter of 2012.