Daniel Michael Blake Day-Lewis (b.1957) is an English actor. Known as the “world’s greatest actor,” Day-Lewis is famous for his exceptional versatility, on-screen intensity, and exhaustive preparation for the demands of each role.
Born in London, Day-Lewis is the son of British Poet Laureate Cecil Day-Lewis. Daniel initially performed with the Bristol Old Vic and Royal Shakespeare theatrical companies. His first leading roles in My Beautiful Laundrette (1985,) A Room with a View (1985,) and The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1988) won him international acclaim.
Highly selective in his roles, Day-Lewis is the first actor to win the Academy Award for Best Actor thrice—for My Left Foot (1989,) There Will Be Blood (2007,) and Lincoln (2012;) he was nominated for three more.
A method actor, Day-Lewis often remains in character even when he’s off the stage-set of a film. He learned Czech to play a philandering doctor in the adoption of Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being, listened to rapper Eminem’s music to channel anger in Gangs of New York, and confined himself to a wheelchair for My Left Foot—he even had the film’s crew push him around the set and spoon-feed him. His deep immersion in the characters he plays has often left him depressed after “emerging” from the roles.
Day-Lewis’s other prominent films include In the Name of the Father (1993,) The Crucible (1996,) Gangs of New York (2002) and Phantom Thread (2017.)
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Daniel Day-Lewis
I suppose I have a highly developed capacity for self-delusion, so it’s no problem for me to believe that I’m somebody else.
—Daniel Day-Lewis
Topics: Identity
You don’t merely give over your creativity to making a film—you give over your life! In theatre, by contrast, you live these two rather strange lives simultaneously; you have no option but to confront the mould on last night’s washing-up.
—Daniel Day-Lewis
Topics: Acting, Actors
Being at the center of a film is a burden one takes on with innocence—the first time. Thereafter, you take it on with trepidation.
—Daniel Day-Lewis
Topics: Fame
The thing about performance, even if it’s only an illusion, is that it is a celebration of the fact that we do contain within ourselves infinite possibilities.
—Daniel Day-Lewis
Topics: Actors, Acting
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