Day-Lewis rounded up another Oscar nomination for his role as the knife-wielding gangster and won another BAFTA for best actor.ĭay-Lewis gave another stunning performance in the 2007 film There Will Be Blood. Day-Lewis has been reluctant to talk about his time out of the public eye, saying, it was a period of my life that I had a right to without any intervention of that kind. In 2002, though, he was back in front of the camera for a much-lauded performance as Bill the Butcher in Martin Scorsese's Gangs of New York. Day-Lewis' next two movies were commercially successful period pieces, The Age of Innocence (1993) and The Crucible (1996).Īfter shooting the film The Boxer in 1997, Day-Lewis unexpectedly moved to Italy to become an apprentice to a shoemaker, effectively cutting himself off from celebrity life. His second Academy Award nomination was for his performance in the popular In the Name of the Father (1993). Day-Lewis carried a long-rifle with him for the entire duration of filming, and learned how to live off the land, make canoes, and hunt and skin animals. In 1992, he returned to film with a starring role in Last of the Mohicans. His hard work paid off when he took home an Oscar and a British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) Best Actor Award, among a slew of other accolades.įollowing this success, Day-Lewis took a break from Hollywood and returned to the stage for several years. To get into character, the actor stayed in a wheelchair, even off-camera, requiring the crew to move him around and injuring two ribs embodying his character's paralysis. To prepare for the role, Day-Lewis learned Czech, and he subsequently stayed in character for the entire eight-month shoot.ĭay-Lewis also dove deep into his next role, playing Christy Brown in My Left Foot (1989). His first leading role came shortly after, in 1987, when he starred opposite Juliette Binoche in The Unbearable Lightness of Being. In 1986, Day-Lewis' career started to take off with his acclaimed role in A Room with a View (1986). And if you define it, you kill it dead."ĭaniel Day-Lewis shifted between theater and film for most of the early 1980s, joining the Royal Shakespeare Company and appearing alongside stars Anthony Hopkins and Sir Laurence Olivier in the 1984 film The Bounty. In talking a character through, you define it. Day-Lewis explained his preparations for roles this way: "I don't rehearse at all in film if I can help it. Applying the same ethos to drama as he did to woodworking, Day-Lewis became a method actor, devoting himself physically, psychologically, and emotionally to getting in character for each of his roles. He continued to appear in films and plays for several years, during which time he developed into one of the most skilled actors in the profession. In 1972 his father died of pancreatic cancer.Īfter his years at the Bristol Old Vic and several stage appearances, Day-Lewis landed a film role in Gandhi (1982). He was accepted to the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School and threw himself fully into the craft of drama. Eventually, he applied to a theater program. Enamored with woodworking and craftsmanship as a teenager, he focused for a time on these pursuits rather than on acting. He shared the Balcon family inclination to act, but he was initially more drawn to working-class pursuits than to the stage. Despite his lack of success in school, Day-Lewis had plenty of other talents. At his new school, he was made fun of by his classmates for being Jewish. His mother, Jill Balcon, was a Jewish actress.ĭay-Lewis's poor behavior at his South London public school prompted his parents to send him to a private school in Kent, called Sevenoaks, but Day-Lewis did not fare much better there. His father, Cecil Day-Lewis, was a writer who was England's poet laureate for the last four years of his life. Daniel Day-Lewis was born on April 29, 1957, into a well-to-do and creative family in London, England.
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