Daniel Day-Lewis didn’t think his singing and dancing was good enough to star in new musical movie Nine.

The Oscar-winning actor, who plays Italian film director Guido Contini in the hotly-anticipated film, had a crisis of confidence and asked the director Rob Marshall if there was anyone else who could take his role, because he had no confidence in his voice.

“I did say to Rob in the early stages, ‘Is there anyway of getting out of this? I have a list of actors who could do it tomorrow!’ He tried to convince me I could sing and I said, ‘You’ve no idea if I can sing or not!’ I sang feebly a couple of times, and on the grounds of that Rob managed to convince me it was worth pursuing.”

The 52-year-old actor, who is famous for his method acting, also joked that dancing was difficult because his body is so “creaky”: “I can do a lot of stuff, I can climb, I can run, I can cycle, I can box, but I can’t dance. I used a lot of 3-in-1 to lubricate those stiff joints. It’s not natural grace - that’s sheer effort of will. My limbs are a mass of scar tissue through years of doing things I shouldn’t have.”

Daniel stars in Nine alongside Penelope Cruz, Dame Judi Dench and Nicole Kidman.