'Daniel Michael Blake Day-Lewis' (born
29 April,
1957) is an
Academy-Award winning and
Golden Globe-award nominated actor. Born in
London,
England, he became an
Irish citizen in 1993.
After studying at the
Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, Daniel Day-Lewis performed in numerous stage plays and films that gained him an Academy Award, two
BAFTA awards, and four
Golden Globe nominations. In the midst of his career, he has become known as one of the most selective actors in the film industry, starring in only four movies in the last ten years. He has also been acknowledged for his constant devotion to his roles and copious amounts of research he performs. Often he will remain in character and speak in the accents he has used on screen throughout the entire shooting schedule.
Early life
Day-Lewis is the son of the late British
Poet Laureate Cecil Day-Lewis. His mother, who comes from a
Jewish family, is actress
Jill Balcon, daughter of Sir
Michael Balcon, former head of
Ealing Studios. Two years after his birth in London, the Day-Lewis family moved to Croom's Hill,
Greenwich where Daniel grew up along with his older sister,
Tamasin Day-Lewis, who later become a renowned documentary filmmaker and television chef. Cecil Day-Lewis was already 53 years old at the time of his son's birth, and seemed to take little interest in his children.
[2] Following frequent health problems, he died when Daniel was 15. Daniel felt unsettled about his lack of emotion, and regretted not having been closer to his father.
Living in Greenwich, Day-Lewis naturally found himself among some tough South London kids and being Jewish and "posh", he was often bullied.
[3] Very quickly, therefore, he mastered the local accent and mannerisms — which he believes to have been the first convincing performances he gave. 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 illegalities.
[4] [5]
In 1968, Day-Lewis' parents, finding him to be "too wild", sent him to
Sevenoaks school in Kent, as a boarder. Though he detested the school, he was introduced to his two most prominent interests,
woodworking and
acting. He made his debut in ''
Cry, The Beloved Country'' wearing extensive makeup for his role as a Black boy. While his disdain for the school grew, 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 vandalize expensive cars parked outside his local church.
[6] After two years at Sevenoaks, Daniel was transferred to the
Bedales School in
Petersfield.
Leaving Bedales in 1975, his unruly attitude had faded and he now had to make a career choice. Although he loved acting and had excelled onstage at the National Youth Theatre, he found something "seedy" about backstage life, and decided to become a cabinet-maker, applying for a five-year apprenticeship. However, because of a lack of experience, he was not accepted. He then applied (and was accepted) at the
Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, which he attended for three years, eventually performing at the Bristol Old Vic itself. (At one point he played understudy to
Pete Postlethwaite, whom he would later play opposite in ''
In the Name of the Father'', and with whom he shares a brief scene in ''
Last of the Mohicans'' when he is the arresting officer when Hawkeye is imprisoned for sedition ).
Career
1980s
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 1984, 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''. (He later grew to detest the character, however, and often described him as a "
wanker").
The actor was next featured on stage as "The Count" in the stage-play of ''
Dracula'' where he appeared with his hair dyed blond in a throwback to ''
Nosferatu''. He later let his hair grow out to give a frosted "punk look" when he played half of a gay bi-racial couple in ''
My Beautiful Laundrette''. Day-Lewis gained further public notice when the film was released simultaneously with a completely different character in ''
A Room with a View'' (1986), in which he played the effete upper-class fiance of the main character (played by
Helena Bonham Carter).
In 1987, Day-Lewis assumed leading man status by starring in
Philip Kaufman's ''
The Unbearable Lightness of Being'', co-starring
Lena Olin and
Juliette Binoche, as a
Czech doctor whose hyperactive and purely physical 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.
[5]
Day-Lewis put his personal version of "method acting" into full use in 1989 with his performance as
Christy Brown in
Jim Sheridan's ''
My Left Foot'' which won him numerous awards, including the
Academy Award for Best Actor. During filming, his eccentricities came to the fore, due to his refusal to break character.
Playing a severely paralyzed character onscreen, offscreen Day-Lewis had to be wheeled 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 Christy Brown's life, including the embarrassments.
[4] He also broke two ribs during filming from assuming a hunched-over position in his wheelchair for so many weeks.
[9]
Daniel Day-Lewis returned to the stage to work with
Richard Eyre, as ''
Hamlet'' at the
National Theatre, but collapsed in the middle of a scene where the ghost of Hamlet's father first appears to his son. He began sobbing uncontrollably and refused to go back on stage; his understudy (a then unknown
Jeremy Northam) finished what little was left of the production's run. One rumour following the incident was that Day-Lewis had seen the ghost of his own father, although the incident was officially attributed to exhaustion. He confirmed on the top British celebrity chat show 'Parkinson' on ITV that this rumour was true. He has not appeared on stage since.
1990s
In 1992, three years after his Oscar win, ''
The Last of the Mohicans'' was released. Day-Lewis' 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. He even carried a
Kentucky rifle at all times during filming in order to remain in character.
While the film carried him to new heights of stardom, Day-Lewis preferred less "Hollywood" films such as ''
The Age of Innocence'' co-starring
Michelle Pfeiffer and directed by
Martin Scorsese. He ultimately 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. He also insisted that crew members throw cold water and verbal abuse at him. The film earned him his second Academy Award nomination, his third BAFTA nomination, and his second Golden Globe nomination.
In 1996, Day-Lewis starred in a film version of ''
The Crucible'' based on the play by
Arthur Miller and co-starring
Winona Ryder. He followed that with Jim Sheridan's ''
The Boxer'' as a former boxer and IRA member recently released from prison. His preparation included training for six months with former boxing world champion
Barry McGuigan.
Following ''The Boxer'', Daniel Day-Lewis took a leave of absence from acting by putting himself into "semi-retirement" and returning to his old passion of woodworking. He moved to
Florence,
Italy where he became intrigued by the craft of shoemaking, eventually apprenticing as a
cobbler for a time. His exact whereabouts and actions were not publicly known.
[10]
2000s
After a three-year absence from filming, Day-Lewis was convinced to return to acting by Martin Scorsese (with whom he had worked on ''The Age of Innocence'') and
Harvey Weinstein to play (opposite
Leonardo DiCaprio) the villain gangleader, "Bill the Butcher" (who, ironically, has a pure hatred for Ireland and the Irish people), in ''
Gangs of New York''. He began his lengthy, self-disciplined process by taking lessons as an apprentice butcher. Day-Lewis' dedication to the role even threatened his life at one point during filming when he was 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.
[11] Also, between takes, he would often listen to
Eminem tunes, to help get him into the self-righteous frame of mind of the character.
His performance in ''Gangs of New York'' earned him his third Academy Award nomination and won him the BAFTA Award for Best Actor. At the time, he swore that this film would be his last.
This was not to be the case, however, when Day-Lewis' own 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 raised his teenaged daughter. During filming he arranged to live separately from his wife in order to achieve the "isolation" needed to focus on his own character's reality.
[12] The film received mixed reviews, while Day-Lewis received almost universal praise for his performance.
In 2006, it was reported in ''Variety'' that
Paul Thomas Anderson's next film would be an adaptation of the controversial novel ''
Oil!'', renamed ''
There Will Be Blood'' and starring Daniel Day-Lewis.
[13]
Personal life
Because of his desire for privacy, Day-Lewis rarely talks publicly about his personal life, although he had what he would later describe as "the most on-off relationship in the world" with French actress
Isabelle Adjani. The strained relationship lasted six years and eventually ended when Adjani notified Day-Lewis, reportedly by fax, that she was pregnant.
[14] Gabriel-Kane Day-Lewis was born in 1995 in
New York, months after the relationship between the two actors had ended.
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 fell in love and were married two weeks before the film's release. The couple has two sons, Ronan (born
June 14,
1998), and Cashel (born May 2002)
[15] and divide their time between their homes in the US, and Ireland.
[16]
Filmography
See also
★
List of people on stamps of Ireland
References
1. [1]. Retrieved January 25, 2007.
2. Segal, David (2005) ''Washington Post Article/Interview on Daniel Day-Lewis''. Washington Post
3. http://www.dd-l.net/LINKS/LIB/time.html
4. Jenkins, Garry (1995) 'Daniel Day-Lewis: The Fires Within'. St. Martins Pr
5. Wills, Dominic [n.d.]. "Extensive Biography of Daniel Day-Lewis". ''Tiscali UK''. Retrieved 25 February, 2006.
6. Segal, David [2005] 'Washington Post Article/Interview on Daniel Day-Lewis'. Washington Post
7. Wills, Dominic [n.d.]. "Extensive Biography of Daniel Day-Lewis". ''Tiscali UK''. Retrieved 25 February, 2006.
8. Jenkins, Garry (1995) 'Daniel Day-Lewis: The Fires Within'. St. Martins Pr
9. [2005] ''An Inspirational Journey: The Making of My Left Foot'' DVD. Miramax Films
10. [n.d.] (see[2]) New York Times Biography, ''New York Times''. Retrieved 27 February, 2006.
11. [2006] "Daniel Day-Lewis IMDB biography". ''Internet Movie Database''. Retrieved 27 February 2006.
12. Segal, David [2005] ''Washington Post Article/Interview on Daniel Day-Lewis''. Washington Post
13. Fleming, Michael and Mohr, Ian (2006) (see [3]) ''There Will Be Blood'' announcement". ''Variety''. Retrieved 25 February, 2006.
14. Davis, Julia [n.d.] "Daniel Day-Lewis is the antithesis of the attention-seeking Hollywood actor...... (Biography)". ''Julia Davis''. Retrieved 28 February, 2006.
15. (2006) (see Rebecca Miller IMDB biography. ''Internet Movie Database''. Retrieved 27 February, 2006.
16. Segal, David (2005) 'Washington Post Article/Interview on Daniel Day-Lewis'. Washington Post
External links
★
★
Extensive Biography at Tiscali UK
★
DD-L: A Celebration of Daniel Day-Lewis (Fansite)
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