Daniel Day-Lewis

In 1968, Day-Lewis' parents, finding his behaviour to be too wild, sent him as a boarder to the independent Sevenoaks School in Kent. 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. His sister was already a student there, and it had a more relaxed and creative ethos. He made his film debut at the age of 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.

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' 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. By the time he left Bedales in 1975, Day-Lewis' 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 rejected due to lack of experience. 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. 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).

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 had 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.

In 1985, Day-Lewis gave his first critically acclaimed performance playing a young gay English man in an interracial relationship with a Pakistani youth in the film My Beautiful Laundrette. Directed by Stephen Frears, and written by Hanif Kureishi, the film is set in 1980s London during Margaret Thatcher's tenure as Prime Minister. It is the first of three Day-Lewis films to appear in the BFI's 100 greatest British films of the 20th century, ranking 50th.

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. 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. During this period, Day-Lewis was regarded as "one of Britain’s most exciting young actors". 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".

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. 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. During filming, he again refused to break character. 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. Crew members were also required to spoon-feed him. 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.

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. He began sobbing uncontrollably, and refused to go back on stage; he was replaced by Jeremy Northam, who gave a triumphant performance. Ian Charleson formally replaced Day-Lewis for the rest of the run. Earlier in the run, Day-Lewis had talked of the "demons" in the role, and for weeks he threw himself passionately into the part. Although the incident was officially attributed to exhaustion, Day-Lewis claimed to have seen the ghost of his own father. 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." He has not appeared on stage since. 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.

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. 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. Although Day-Lewis had reservations about the role, regarding himself as “too English” for the part, he accepted due to Scorsese directing the film.

Protective of his privacy, Day-Lewis described his life as a "lifelong study in evasion". He had a relationship with French actress Isabelle Adjani that lasted six years, eventually ending after a split and reconciliation. Their son, Gabriel-Kane Day-Lewis, was born on 9 April 1995, in New York City, a few months after the relationship ended.

In 1996, Day-Lewis starred in The Crucible, a film version of the play by Arthur Miller. During the shoot, he met his future wife, Rebecca Miller, the author's daughter. He followed that with Jim Sheridan's The Boxer, 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. Impressed with Day-Lewis’s work in the ring, McGuigan stated he could have become a professional boxer. “If you eliminate the top ten middleweights in Britain, any of the other guys Daniel could have gone in and fought.”

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. They married later that year, on 13 November 1996. The couple have two sons, Ronan Cal Day-Lewis (born 1998) and Cashel Blake Day-Lewis (born 2002). They divide their time between their homes in Annamoe, County Wicklow, and Manhattan, New York.

After a three-year absence from acting on screen, Day-Lewis returned in 2000 to film Gangs of New York (2002), directed by Scorsese and produced by Harvey Weinstein. In his role as the villainous gang leader William "Bill the Butcher" Cutting, he starred alongside Leonardo DiCaprio, who played Bill's young protégé. He hired circus performers to teach him to throw knives. While filming, he was never out of character between takes (including keeping his character's New York accent). 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; however, he was eventually persuaded to seek medical treatment. His performance in Gangs of New York earned him his third Academy Award nomination, and won him his second BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role.

In 2007, Day-Lewis starred in Paul Thomas Anderson's loose film adaptation of Upton Sinclair's novel Oil!, titled There Will Be Blood. Day-Lewis received the Academy Award for Best Actor, BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role, Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama, Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role (which he dedicated to Heath Ledger, saying that he was inspired by Ledger's acting and calling the actor's performance in Brokeback Mountain "unique, perfect"), and a variety of film critics' circle awards for the role. In winning the Best Actor Oscar, Day-Lewis joined Marlon Brando and Jack Nicholson as the only Best Actor winner awarded an Oscar in two non-consecutive decades.

In 2008, when he received the Academy Award for Best Actor from Helen Mirren (who was on presenting duty having won the previous year's Best Actress Oscar for playing Queen Elizabeth II in The Queen), Day-Lewis knelt before her, and she tapped him on each shoulder with the Oscar statuette, to which he quipped: "That's the closest I'll come to ever getting a knighthood." Day-Lewis was appointed a Knight Bachelor in the 2014 Birthday Honours for services to drama. On 14 November 2014, he was knighted by Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, in an investiture ceremony at Buckingham Palace.

In 2009, Day-Lewis starred in Rob Marshall's musical adaptation Nine as film director Guido Contini. He was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy and the Satellite Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy for his role, as well as sharing nominations for the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture and the Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Cast and the Satellite Award for Best Cast – Motion Picture with the rest of the cast members.

On 15 July 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. Day-Lewis has stated that he had "no real religious education", and that he "suppose[s]" he is "a die-hard agnostic". In October 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. In July 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. In June 2017, Day-Lewis became a patron of the Wilfred Owen Association. Day-Lewis' 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.

Day-Lewis played Abraham Lincoln in Steven Spielberg's film Lincoln (2012). Based on the book Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, the film began shooting in Richmond, Virginia, in October 2011. Day-Lewis spent a year in preparation for the role, a time he had requested from Spielberg. 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, he asked British crew members who shared his native English accent not to chat with him. On Day-Lewis’s portrayal, Spielberg states, “I never once looked the gift horse in the mouth. I never asked Daniel about his process. I didn’t want to know.” Lincoln received positive reviews, especially for Day-Lewis' performance. It also became a commercial success, grossing over $275 million worldwide. In November 2012 he received the BAFTA Britannia Award for Excellence in Film. The same month, Day-Lewis featured on the cover of Time magazine as the "World's Greatest Actor".

Day-Lewis has held dual British and Irish citizenship since 1993. He has maintained his Annamoe home since 1997. 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." He is a supporter of South East London football club Millwall. Day-Lewis is also an Ambassador for The Lir Academy, a new drama school at Trinity College Dublin, founded in 2011.

At the 70th Golden Globe Awards, on 14 January 2013, Day-Lewis won his second Golden Globe Award for Best Actor, and at the 66th British Academy Film Awards on 10 February, he won his fourth BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role. At the 85th Academy Awards, Day-Lewis became the first three-time recipient of the Best Actor Oscar for his role in Lincoln. John Hartoch, Day-Lewis' acting teacher at Bristol Old Vic theatre school, said of his former pupil's achievement,

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 (Vicky Krieps). Prior to the film's release, on 20 June 2017, Day-Lewis' spokeswoman, Leslee Dart, announced that he was retiring from acting. Unable to give an exact reason for his decision, in a November 2017 interview, Day-Lewis stated: "I haven't figured it out. But it's settled on me, and it's just there... I dread to use the over-used word 'artist', but there's something of the responsibility of the artist that hung over me. 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." On Day-Lewis's retirement, Anderson stated, “I would like to hope that he just needs a break. But I don't know. It sure doesn't seem like it right now, which is a big drag for all of us.” The film and his performance were met with universal praise from critics, and Day-Lewis was again nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor.

Widely respected among his peers, in June 2017, Michael Simkins in The Guardian writes, "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."