Daniel Day-Lewis
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| Daniel Day-Lewis | |
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Day-Lewis at the 2013 Jaguar Mille Miglia event
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| Born | Daniel Michael Blake Day-Lewis 29 April 1957 London, England, UK |
| Citizenship | British and Irish |
| Education | Sevenoaks School[1] (1968-1970) Bedales School[1][2] (1970-1975) |
| Alma mater | Bristol Old Vic Theatre School |
| Occupation | Actor |
| Years active | 1970–2012 (on hiatus) |
| Spouse(s) | Rebecca Miller (m. 1996) |
| Partner(s) | Isabelle Adjani (1989–1995) |
| Children | 3 |
| Parents | Cecil Day-Lewis (deceased) Jill Balcon (deceased) |
| Relatives | Tamasin Day-Lewis (sister) |
| Awards | |
| Academy Awards | |
| Best Actor 1989 My Left Foot 2007 There Will Be Blood 2012 Lincoln |
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| Golden Globe Awards | |
| Best Actor – Drama 2007 There Will Be Blood 2012 Lincoln |
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| BAFTA Awards | |
| Best Actor in a Leading Role 1989 My Left Foot 2002 Gangs of New York 2007 There Will Be Blood 2012 Lincoln |
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| Screen Actors Guild Awards | |
| Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role 2002 Gangs of New York 2007 There Will Be Blood 2012 Lincoln |
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Day-Lewis is one of the most acclaimed actors of his generation and has earned numerous awards, including three Academy Awards for Best Actor, for his portrayals of Christy Brown in My Left Foot (1989), Daniel Plainview in There Will Be Blood (2007), and Abraham Lincoln in Lincoln (2012), a feat that makes him to date one of three male actors to win three Oscars (the other two being Walter Brennan and Jack Nicholson), and the only male actor in history to garner three wins in the lead actor category.[7] Day-Lewis has also won four BAFTA Awards for Best Actor, three Screen Actors Guild Awards, three Critics' Choice Movie Awards, and two Golden Globe Awards.
Contents
Early life
Day-Lewis was born in London, the son of poet Cecil Day-Lewis and English actress Jill Balcon. His father, who was of Anglo-Irish background, lived in England from the age of two and later became the United Kingdom's Poet Laureate. His mother was Jewish, and his maternal grandparents' families had emigrated to England from Latvia and Poland.[8][9] His maternal grandfather, Sir Michael Balcon, an important figure in the history of British cinema, was the head of Ealing Studios.[10] Two years after his birth, the family moved to Croom's Hill, Greenwich, south-east London, where Day-Lewis grew up along with his older sister, Tamasin Day-Lewis, who became a documentary filmmaker and television chef.[11]Living in Greenwich, Day-Lewis found himself among tough South London children, and, being of part Jewish ancestry and "posh", he was often bullied.[12] He mastered the local accent and mannerisms and credits that with being his first convincing performances.[12][13] Later in life, he was known to speak of himself as very much a disorderly character in his younger years, often in trouble for shoplifting and other petty crimes.[13][1]
In 1968, Day-Lewis' parents, finding his behaviour to be too wild, sent him to the independent Sevenoaks School in Kent as a boarder.[1] Though he detested the school, he was introduced to his three most prominent interests: woodworking, acting, and fishing. His disdain for the school grew, and after two years at Sevenoaks, he was transferred to another independent school, Bedales in Petersfield, Hampshire,[14] which his sister attended, and which had a more relaxed and creative ethos.[1] The transfer led to 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.[11]
For a few weeks in 1972, he and his parents and sister lived at Lemmons, the north London home of Kingsley Amis and Elizabeth Jane Howard. Cecil Day-Lewis had cancer and Howard invited the family to Lemmons as a place they could use to rest and recuperate. Cecil died there in May that year.[15]
Leaving Bedales in 1975, Day-Lewis's unruly attitude had faded 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, but was rejected due to lack of experience.[1] He was then accepted at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, which he attended for three years, eventually performing at the Bristol Old Vic itself.[1] At one point he played understudy to Pete Postlethwaite, with whom he would later co-star in In the Name of the Father.[16]
Career
1980s
During the early '80s, 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[17] officer torn between allegiances to Britain and Ireland) for the BBC. Eleven years after his film debut, Day-Lewis continued his film career with a small part in Gandhi (1982) as Colin, a street thug who bullies the title character, only to be immediately chastised by his high-strung mother. In late 1982 he had his big theatre break when he took over the lead in Another Country. The following year, he had a supporting role as the conflicted, but ultimately loyal first mate in The Bounty, after which he joined the Royal Shakespeare Company, playing Romeo in Romeo and Juliet and Flute in A Midsummer Night's Dream.[1]In 1985, Day-Lewis played a gay man in an interracial relationship in the film My Beautiful Laundrette, set in 1980s London during the period when Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister. Day-Lewis gained further public notice with A Room with a View (1985). Set in the Edwardian period of turn-of-the-twentieth-century England, he portrayed an entirely different character: Cecil Vyse, the proper upper class fiancé of the main character (played by Helena Bonham Carter).[18] In 1987, Day-Lewis assumed leading man status by starring in Philip Kaufman's adaptation of Milan Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being, co-starring Lena Olin and Juliette Binoche, where 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.[1] During this period, Day-Lewis and other young British actors of the time such as Gary Oldman, Colin Firth, Tim Roth and Bruce Payne, were dubbed the 'Brit Pack',[19] a nickname based on the Brat Pack of the US.
Day-Lewis threw his personal version of method acting into full throttle in 1989 with his performance as Christy Brown in Jim Sheridan's My Left Foot, which garnered him numerous awards, including the Academy Award for Best Actor. He prepared for his role by frequent visits to Sandymount School Clinic in Dublin, where he formed friendships with several people with disabilities, some of whom had no speech.[20] During filming, he refused to break character.[1] 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.[13] 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.[21]
Day-Lewis returned to the stage in 1989 to work with Richard Eyre, in Hamlet at the National Theatre, London, but collapsed in the middle of a scene where the ghost of Hamlet's father first appears to his son.[1] He began sobbing uncontrollably and refused to go back on stage; he was replaced by Jeremy Northam who finished the performance word-and-action-perfect and received a standing ovation. Ian Charleson then formally replaced Day-Lewis for the rest of the run, except that ill-health forced Northam to stand in again many times. Although the incident was officially attributed to exhaustion, Day-Lewis later claimed to have seen the ghost of his own father.[1][22][23] He has not appeared on stage since.[23] 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.[24]
1990s
In 1992, three years after his Oscar win, The Last of the Mohicans was released. Day-Lewis's character research for this film was well-publicized; he reportedly underwent rigorous weight training and learned to live off the land and forest where his character lived, camping, hunting and fishing.[1] Day-Lewis also added to his wood-working skills and learned how to make canoes.[25] He even carried a long rifle at all times during filming in order to remain in character and learned how to skin animals.[1][26]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 a substantial amount of weight 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.[26] He also insisted that crew members throw cold water at him and verbally abuse him.[26] The film earned him his second Academy Award nomination, his third BAFTA nomination, and his second Golden Globe nomination.
Day-Lewis returned in 1993, playing Newland Archer in Martin Scorsese's adaptation of the Edith Wharton novel The Age of Innocence, opposite Winona Ryder and Michelle Pfeiffer. 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 in cold weather.[27]
In 1996, Day-Lewis starred in The Crucible, a film version of the play by Arthur Miller, again opposite Winona Ryder. During the shoot he met his future wife, Rebecca Miller, the author's daughter.[28] He followed that with Jim Sheridan's The Boxer as a former boxer and IRA member recently released from prison. His preparation included training with former boxing world champion Barry McGuigan.[29]
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.[29] He moved to Florence, Italy, where he became intrigued by the craft of shoemaking, eventually apprenticing as a shoemaker.[1] For a time his exact whereabouts and actions were not made publicly known.[30] Day-Lewis has declined to discuss this period of his life, stating that "it was a period of my life that I had a right to, without any intervention of that kind."
2000s
In 2007, Day-Lewis starred in director Paul Thomas Anderson's loose adaptation of the Upton Sinclair novel Oil!, titled There Will Be Blood.[33] 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"),[34][35] 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 winners awarded an Oscar in two non-consecutive decades.
In 2009, Day-Lewis starred in Rob Marshall's musical adaptation Nine as film director Guido Contini.[36] Day-Lewis 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.
2010s
On 19 March 2013, a two-DVD set entitled "Daniel Day-Lewis Triple Feature"—a compilation of much of the actor's performances on British TV programmes from 1982 to 1986—was scheduled to be released in the U.S. by BBC Home Entertainment.[44]
Personal life
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.[4] They married later that year. The couple have two sons, Ronan Cal Day-Lewis (born 1998) and Cashel Blake Day-Lewis (born 2002) and divide their time between their homes in New York City and Ireland.[11]
Day-Lewis became an Irish citizen in 1993[45] and currently holds British and Irish dual citizenship. He has lived in Annamoe, County Wicklow since 1997.[46][47][48] 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".[49] He is a supporter of South-East London football club Millwall.[50]
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.[51] Day-Lewis has stated that he had "no real religious education" and that he "suppose[s]" he is "a die-hard agnostic".[52] In October 2012, he donated to Oxford University 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.[53]
Filmography
Film
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1971 | Sunday Bloody Sunday | Child vandal | |
| 1982 | Gandhi | Colin | |
| 1984 | The Bounty | John Fryer | |
| 1985 | My Beautiful Laundrette | Johnny | |
| 1985 | A Room with a View | Cecil Vyse | |
| 1986 | Nanou | Maxo | |
| 1988 | The Unbearable Lightness of Being | Tomas | |
| 1988 | Stars and Bars | Henderson Dores | |
| 1989 | Eversmile, New Jersey | Dr. Fergus O'Connell | |
| 1989 | My Left Foot | Christy Brown | Academy Award for Best Actor |
| 1992 | The Last of the Mohicans | Hawkeye (Nathaniel Poe) | |
| 1993 | The Age of Innocence | Newland Archer | |
| 1993 | In the Name of the Father | Gerry Conlon | Nominated – Academy Award for Best Actor |
| 1996 | The Crucible | John Proctor | |
| 1997 | The Boxer | Danny Flynn | |
| 2002 | Gangs of New York | William "Bill the Butcher" Cutting | Nominated – Academy Award for Best Actor |
| 2005 | The Ballad of Jack and Rose | Jack Slavin | |
| 2007 | There Will Be Blood | Daniel Plainview | Academy Award for Best Actor |
| 2009 | Nine | Guido Contini | |
| 2012 | Lincoln | Abraham Lincoln | Academy Award for Best Actor |
Television
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1980 | Shoestring | DJ | Episode: "The Farmer Had a Wife" |
| 1981 | Thank You, P.G. Wodehouse | Psmith | Television film |
| 1981 | Artemis 81 | Library Student | Television film |
| 1982 | How Many Miles to Babylon? | Alec | Television film |
| 1982 | Frost in May | Archie Hughes-Forret | Episode: "Beyond the Glass" |
| 1983 | Play of the Month | Gordon Whitehouse | Episode: "Dangerous Corner" |
| 1985 | My Brother Jonathan | Jonathan Dakers | Television film |
Awards and nominations
See also
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