Born and raised in London, Day-Lewis excelled on stage at the National Youth Theatre before being accepted at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, which he attended for three years. Despite his traditional training at the Bristol Old Vic, he is considered a method actor, known for his constant devotion to and research of his roles.[8][9] Protective of his private life, he rarely grants interviews and makes very few public appearances.[10]
Day-Lewis's father Cecil and maternal grandfather Sir Michael Balcon were both awarded English Heritageblue plaques to mark their respective contributions to literature and cinema in the UK.
Two years after Day-Lewis's birth, he moved with his family to Croom's Hill in Greenwich via Port Clarence, County Durham. He and his older sister did not see much of their older two half-brothers, who had been teenagers when Day-Lewis's father divorced their mother.[20] Living in Greenwich (he attended Invicta and Sherington Primary Schools),[21] Day-Lewis had to deal with tough south London children. At this school, he was bullied for being both Jewish and "posh".[22][23] He mastered the local accent and mannerisms, and credits that as being his first convincing performance.[23][24] Later in life, he has been known to speak of himself as a disorderly character in his younger years, often in trouble for shoplifting and other petty crimes.[24][25]
In 1968, Day-Lewis's parents, finding his behaviour to be too wild, sent him as a boarder to the independent Sevenoaks School in Kent.[25] At the school, he was introduced to his three most prominent interests: woodworking, acting, and fishing. However, his disdain for the school grew, and after two years at Sevenoaks, he was transferred to another independent school, Bedales in Petersfield, Hampshire.[26] His sister was already a student there, and it had a more relaxed and creative ethos.[25] He made his film debut at age 14 in Sunday Bloody Sunday, in which he played a vandal in an uncredited role. He described the experience as "heaven" for getting paid £2 to vandalise expensive cars parked outside his local church.[20]
For a few weeks in 1972, the Day-Lewis family lived at Lemmons, the north London home of Kingsley Amis and Elizabeth Jane Howard. Day-Lewis's father had pancreatic cancer, and Howard invited the family to Lemmons as a place they could use to rest and recuperate. His father died there in May that year.[27] By the time he left Bedales in 1975, Day-Lewis's unruly attitude had diminished and he needed to make a career choice. Although he had excelled on stage at the National Youth Theatre in London, he applied for a five-year apprenticeship as a cabinet maker. He was turned down due to a lack of experience.[25] He was accepted at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, which he attended for three years along with Miranda Richardson, eventually performing at the Bristol Old Vic itself.[25] At one point he played understudy to Pete Postlethwaite, with whom he would later co-star in the film In the Name of the Father (1994).[28]
John Hartoch, Day-Lewis's acting teacher at Bristol Old Vic, recalled:
There was something about him even then. He was quiet and polite, but he was clearly focused on his acting—he had a burning quality. He seemed to have something burning beneath the surface. There was a lot going on beneath that quiet appearance. There was one performance in particular, when the students put on a play called Class Enemy, when he really seemed to shine—and it became obvious to us, the staff, that we had someone rather special on our hands.[29]
During the early 1980s, Day-Lewis worked in theatre and television, including Frost in May (where he played an impotent man-child) and How Many Miles to Babylon? (as a World War I officer torn between allegiances to Britain and Ireland) for the BBC. Eleven years after his film debut, Day-Lewis had a small part in the film Gandhi (1982) as Colin, a South African street thug who racially bullies the title character. In late 1982, he had his big theatre break when he took over the lead in Another Country, which premiered in late 1981. Next, he took on a supporting role as the conflicted, but ultimately loyal, first mate in The Bounty (1984). He next joined the Royal Shakespeare Company, playing Romeo in Romeo and Juliet and Flute in A Midsummer Night's Dream.[25]
Day-Lewis gained further public notice that year with A Room with a View (1985), based on the novel by E. M. Forster. Set in the Edwardian period of turn-of-the-20th-century England, he portrayed an entirely different character: Cecil Vyse, the proper upper-class fiancé of the main character Lucy Honeychurch (played by Helena Bonham Carter).[31] In 1987, Day-Lewis assumed leading man status by starring in Philip Kaufman's adaptation of Milan Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being, in which he portrayed a Czech surgeon whose hyperactive sex life is thrown into disarray when he allows himself to become emotionally involved with a woman. During the eight-month shoot, he learned Czech, and first began to refuse to break character on or off the set for the entire shooting schedule.[25] During this period, Day-Lewis was regarded as "one of Britain’s most exciting young actors".[32] He and other young British actors of the time, such as Gary Oldman, Colin Firth, Tim Roth, and Bruce Payne, were dubbed the "Brit Pack".[33]
Day-Lewis progressed his personal version of method acting in 1989 with his performance as Christy Brown in Jim Sheridan's My Left Foot. It won him numerous awards, including the Academy Award for Best Actor and BAFTA Award for Best Actor. Brown, known as a writer and painter, was born with cerebral palsy, and was able to control only his left foot.[34] Day-Lewis prepared for the role by making frequent visits to Sandymount School Clinic in Dublin, where he formed friendships with several people with disabilities, some of whom had no speech.[35] During filming, he again refused to break character.[25] Playing a severely paralysed character on screen, off-screen Day-Lewis had to be moved around the set in his wheelchair, and crew members would curse at having to lift him over camera and lighting wires, all so that he might gain insight into all aspects of Brown's life, including the embarrassments.[24] Crew members were also required to spoon-feed him.[34] It was rumoured that he had broken two ribs during filming from assuming a hunched-over position in his wheelchair for so many weeks, something he denied years later at the 2013 Santa Barbara International Film Festival.[36]
Day-Lewis played Hamlet in Richard Eyre's 1989 production of Hamlet at the National Theatre, London (pictured), his final appearance on the stage
Day-Lewis returned to the stage in 1989 to work with Richard Eyre, as the title character in Hamlet at the National Theatre, London, but during a performance collapsed during the scene where the ghost of Hamlet's father appears before him.[25] He began sobbing uncontrollably, and refused to go back on stage; he was replaced by Jeremy Northam, who gave a triumphant performance.[32]Ian Charleson formally replaced Day-Lewis for the rest of the run.[37] Earlier in the run, Day-Lewis had talked of the "demons" in the role, and for weeks he threw himself passionately into the part.[32] Although the incident was officially attributed to exhaustion, Day-Lewis claimed to have seen the ghost of his own father.[25][38] He later explained that this was more of a metaphor than a hallucination. "To some extent I probably saw my father’s ghost every night, because of course if you’re working in a play like Hamlet, you explore everything through your own experience."[39] He has not appeared on stage since.[40] The media attention following his breakdown on-stage contributed to his decision to eventually move from England to Ireland in the mid-1990s, to regain a sense of privacy amidst his increasing fame.[41]
1990s
Day-Lewis starred in the American film The Last of the Mohicans (1992), based on a novel by James Fenimore Cooper. Day-Lewis's character research for this film was well-publicised; he reportedly underwent rigorous weight training and learned to live off the land and forest where his character lived, camping, hunting, and fishing.[25] Day-Lewis also added to his wood-working skills, and learned how to make canoes.[42] He carried a long rifle at all times during filming to remain in character.[25][43]
Stories of his immersion in roles are legion. Playing Gerry Conlon in In the Name of the Father, Day-Lewis lived on prison rations to lose 30 lb, spent extended periods in the jail cell on set, went without sleep for two days, was interrogated for three days by real policemen, and asked that the crew hurl abuse and cold water at him. For The Boxer in 1997, he trained for weeks with the former world champion Barry McGuigan, who said that he became good enough to turn professional. The actor's injuries include a broken nose and a damaged disc in his lower back.
—"Daniel Day-Lewis aims for perfection". Article published in The Daily Telegraph on 22 February 2008[34]
He returned to work with Jim Sheridan on In the Name of the Father in which he played Gerry Conlon, one of the Guildford Four, who were wrongfully convicted of a bombing carried out by the Provisional IRA. He lost 2st 2 lb (30 lb or 14 kg) for the part, kept his Northern Irish accent on and off the set for the entire shooting schedule, and spent stretches of time in a prison cell.[43] He insisted that crew members throw cold water at him and verbally abuse him.[43] Starring opposite Emma Thompson (who played his lawyer Gareth Peirce), and Pete Postlethwaite, Day-Lewis earned his second Academy Award nomination, third BAFTA nomination, and second Golden Globe nomination.[44]
Day-Lewis returned to the US in 1993, playing Newland Archer in Martin Scorsese's adaptation of the Edith Wharton novel The Age of Innocence. Day-Lewis starred opposite Michelle Pfeiffer, and Winona Ryder. To prepare for the film, set in America's Gilded Age, he wore 1870s-period aristocratic clothing around New York City for two months, including top hat, cane, and cape.[45] Although Day-Lewis was sceptical of the role, thinking himself "too English" for it and hoping for something "more rough-and-tumble", he accepted due to Scorsese directing the film.[46] The film was critically well received, while Peter Travers in Rolling Stone wrote: "Day-Lewis is smashing as the man caught between his emotions and the social ethic. Not since Olivier in Wuthering Heights has an actor matched piercing intelligence with such imposing good looks and physical grace."[47]
In 1996, Day-Lewis starred in the film adaptation of Arthur Miller's play The Crucible reunited with Winona Ryder, and starred alongside Paul Scofield, and Joan Allen. During the shoot, he met his future wife, Rebecca Miller, the author's daughter.[48]Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly gave the film a grade of "A", calling the adaptation "joltingly powerful" and noting the "spectacularly" acted performances of Day-Lewis, Scofield, and Allen.[49] He followed that with Jim Sheridan's The Boxer alongside Emily Watson, starring as a former boxer and IRA member recently released from prison. His preparation included training with former boxing world champion Barry McGuigan. Immersing himself into the boxing scene, he watched "Prince" Naseem Hamed train, and attended professional boxing matches such as the Nigel Benn vs. Gerald McClellan world title fight at London Arena.[50][51] Impressed with his work in the ring, McGuigan felt Day-Lewis could have become a professional boxer, commenting, "If you eliminate the top ten middleweights in Britain, any of the other guys Daniel could have gone in and fought."[39]
Following The Boxer, Day-Lewis took a leave of absence from acting by going into "semi-retirement" and returning to his old passion of woodworking.[50] He moved to Florence, Italy, where he became intrigued by the craft of shoe-making. He apprenticed as a shoe-maker with Stefano Bemer.[25] For a time, his exact whereabouts and actions were not made publicly known.[52]
2000s
Day-Lewis in New York, 2007
After a three-year absence from acting on screen, Day-Lewis returned to film by reuniting with Martin Scorsese for Gangs of New York (2002). He took on the role of villainous gang leader William "Bill the Butcher" Cutting, starring opposite Leonardo DiCaprio, who played Bill's young protégé as well as Cameron Diaz, Jim Broadbent, John C. Reilly, Brendan Gleeson, and Liam Neeson. To help him get into character, he hired circus performers to teach him to throw knives.[34] While filming, he was never out of character between takes (including keeping his character's New York accent).[25] At one point during filming, having been diagnosed with pneumonia, he refused to wear a warmer coat, or to take treatment, because it was not in keeping with the period; he was eventually persuaded to seek medical treatment.[34] The film divided critics while Day-Lewis received plaudits for his portrayal of Bill the Butcher. Rotten Tomatoes's critical consensus reads, "Though flawed, the sprawling, messy Gangs of New York is redeemed by impressive production design and Day-Lewis's electrifying performance."[53] It earned Day-Lewis his third Oscar nomination, and won him his second BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role.[54]
In the early 2000s, Day-Lewis's wife, director Rebecca Miller, offered him the lead role in her film The Ballad of Jack and Rose, in which he played a dying man with regrets over how his life had evolved, and over how he had brought up his teenage daughter. While filming, he arranged to live separately from his wife to achieve the "isolation" needed to focus on his own character's reality.[20] The film received mixed reviews.[55]
Day-Lewis portrayed Abraham Lincoln in Steven Spielberg's biopic Lincoln (2012).[64] Based on the book Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, the film began shooting in Richmond, Virginia, in October 2011.[65] Day-Lewis spent a year in preparation for the role, a time he had requested from Spielberg.[66] He read over 100 books on Lincoln, and long worked with the make-up artist to achieve a physical likeness to Lincoln. Speaking in Lincoln's voice throughout the entire shoot, Day-Lewis asked the British crew members who shared his native accent not to chat with him.[3] Spielberg said of Day-Lewis's portrayal, "I never once looked the gift horse in the mouth. I never asked Daniel about his process. I didn't want to know."[39]Lincoln received critical acclaim, especially for Day-Lewis's performance. It also became a commercial success, grossing over $275 million worldwide.[67] In November 2012, he received the BAFTABritannia Award for Excellence in Film.[68] The same month, Day-Lewis featured on the cover of Time magazine as the "World's Greatest Actor".[69]
He's like Olivier in his prime. [Because he does so few movies], you expect something spectacular when he's got a film out. He's more selective than Brando, and it's turned his movies into events.
Although we have quite an impressive alumni – everyone from Jeremy Irons to Patrick Stewart – I suppose he is now probably the best known, and we're very proud of all he's achieved. I certainly hold him up to current students of an example, particularly as an example of how to manage your career with great integrity. He's never courted fame, and as a result, he's never had his private life impeached upon by the press. He's clearly not interested in celebrity as such – he's just interested in his acting. He is still a great craftsman.[29]
Shortly after winning the Oscar for Lincoln, Day-Lewis announced he would be taking a break from acting before making another film.[71] After a five-year hiatus, Day-Lewis returned to the screen to star in Paul Thomas Anderson's historical drama Phantom Thread (2017). Set in 1950s London, Day-Lewis played an obsessive dressmaker, Reynolds Woodcock, who falls in love with a waitress (played by Vicky Krieps).[72] The film and his performance were met with widespread acclaim from critics, and Day-Lewis was again nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor.[73]
Prior to the film's release in June 2017, Day-Lewis announced that he was retiring from acting.[74][75] In a November 2017 interview, Day-Lewis stated: "I need to believe in the value of what I'm doing. The work can seem vital, irresistible, even. And if an audience believes it, that should be good enough for me. But, lately, it isn't."[76]
2020s
On 1 October 2024, after a seven-year absence, it was announced that Day-Lewis would return to acting. He is attached to star in Anemone, the first film directed by his son, Ronan Day-Lewis, with whom Daniel co-wrote the script.[77]
Technique and reputation
Day-Lewis is considered a method actor, known for his constant devotion to and research of his roles.[8][9] Displaying a "mercurial intensity", he would often remain completely in character throughout the shooting schedules of his films, even to the point of adversely affecting his health.[6][34] He is one of the most selective actors in the film industry, having starred in only six films since 1998, with as many as five years between roles.[78] Protective of his private life, he rarely grants interviews, and makes very few public appearances.[10]
Following his third Oscar win in 2013, there was much debate about Day-Lewis's standing among the greatest actors in film history.[3][4][5][79] Joe Queenan of The Guardian remarked, "Arguing whether Daniel Day-Lewis is a greater actor than Laurence Olivier, or Richard Burton, or Marlon Brando, is like arguing whether Messi is more talented than Pelé, whether Napoleon Bonaparte edges out Alexander the Great as a military genius."[5] When Day-Lewis himself was asked what it was like to be "the world's greatest actor", he replied, "It's daft isn't it? It changes all the time."[80]
Widely respected among his peers, in June 2017, Michael Simkins of The Guardian wrote, "In this glittering cesspit we call the acting profession, there are plenty of rival thesps who, through sheer luck or happenstance, seem to have the career we ourselves could have had if only the cards had fallen differently. But Day-Lewis is, by common consent, even in the most sourly disposed green rooms – a class apart. We shall not look upon his like again – at least for a bit. Performers of his mercurial intensity come along once in a generation."[6]
Protective of his privacy, Day-Lewis has described his life as a "lifelong study in evasion".[81] He had a relationship with French actress Isabelle Adjani that lasted six years, eventually ending after a split and reconciliation.[8] Their son was born in 1995 in New York City a few months after the relationship ended.[82]
In 1996, while working on the film version of the stage play The Crucible, he visited the home of playwright Arthur Miller, where he was introduced to the writer's daughter, Rebecca Miller.[8] They married later that year, on 13 November 1996.[83] The couple have two sons. They divide their time between their homes in Manhattan and Annamoe, Ireland.[20][84]
Day-Lewis has held dual British and Irish citizenship since 1993.[85] He has maintained his Annamoe home since 1997.[84][86][87] He stated: "I do have dual citizenship, but I think of England as my country. I miss London very much, but I couldn't live there because there came a time when I needed to be private and was forced to be public by the press. I couldn't deal with it."[81] He is a supporter of south-east London football club Millwall.[88] Day-Lewis is also an Ambassador for The Lir Academy, a new drama school at Trinity College Dublin, founded in 2011.[89]
In 2010, Day-Lewis received an honorary doctorate in letters from the University of Bristol, in part because of his attendance of the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School in his youth.[90] Day-Lewis has stated that he had "no real religious education", and that he "suppose[s]" he is "a die-hard agnostic".[91] In 2012, he donated to the University of Oxford papers belonging to his father, the poet Cecil Day-Lewis, including early drafts of the poet's work and letters from actor John Gielgud and literary figures such as W. H. Auden, Robert Graves, and Philip Larkin.[92] In 2015, he became the honorary president of the Poetry Archive. A registered UK charity, the Poetry Archive is a free website containing a growing collection of recordings of English-language poets reading their work.[93] In 2017, Day-Lewis became a patron of the Wilfred Owen Association.[94] Day-Lewis's association with Wilfred Owen began with his father, Cecil Day-Lewis, who edited Owen's poetry in the 1960s and his mother, Jill Balcon, who was a vice-president of the Wilfred Owen Association until her death in 2009.[95][96]
^"Daniel Day-Lewis Q&A; -". timeout.com. 20 March 2006. Archived from the original on 15 November 2011. Retrieved 13 January 2024. If I really chose to look at myself, I'd say that probably the thing I'm least interested in about myself is the fact that I'm a middle-class Englishman.
^ abcSimkins, Michael (22 June 2017). "Actors usually envy each other. But Daniel Day-Lewis is a class apart". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 22 March 2019. Retrieved 21 March 2019. Most of us would start any list of those few truly exceptional actors – the shape-shifters as they are sometimes called, individuals who can inhabit another character in its entirety without ever lapsing into impersonation – with Marlon Brando, then veer off into a truculent debate about whether Laurence Olivier was the greatest of them all or just an old ham with stale tricks. Robert De Niro would get a mention of course – Meryl Streep, no doubt. But almost everyone would finish with Day-Lewis.
^ abParker, Emily (23 January 2008). "Sojourner in Other Men's Souls". The Wall Street Journal. Archived from the original on 23 August 2017. Retrieved 28 January 2018.
^Jackson, Laura (2005). Daniel Day-Lewis: the biography. Blake. p. 3. ISBN1-85782-557-8. Michael Balcon's family were Latvian refugees from Riga who had come to England in the second half of the 19th century. The family of his wife, Aileen Leatherman, whom he married in 1924, came from Poland.
^ abStanford, Peter (13 January 2008). "The enigma of Day-Lewis". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 29 August 2017. Retrieved 28 January 2018.
^Watson, Shane (15 August 2004). "The dumping game". The Times. UK. Archived from the original on 15 June 2011. Retrieved 18 August 2022.
^"Stars bring war poetry to life". napier.ac.uk. Edinburgh Napier University. 2 November 2016. Archived from the original on 22 January 2018. Retrieved 28 January 2018.
^Travers, Peter (25 February 2008). "Oscars 2008: The Live Blog". Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on 4 April 2019. Retrieved 4 April 2019.
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