Daniel Day-Lewis life and biography

Daniel Day-Lewis is an English actor with both British and Irish citizenship. His portrayals of Christy Brown in My Left Foot (1989) and Daniel Plainview in There Will Be Blood (2007) won Academy and BAFTA Awards for Best Actor, and Screen Actors Guild as well as Golden Globe Awards for There Will Be Blood. His role as Bill "The Butcher" Cutting in Gangs of New York (2002) earned him the BAFTA Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award.

Day-Lewis, who grew up in London, is the son of actress Jill Balcon and the Anglo-Irish Poet Laureate, Cecil Day-Lewis. He is a method actor, known for his constant devotion to and research of his roles. Often, he will remain completely in character for the duration of the shooting schedule of his films, even to the point of adversely affecting his health. He is known as one of the most selective actors in the film industry, having starred in only five films since 1997, with as many as five years between roles.

Day-Lewis was born in London, the son of British actress Jill Balcon and Anglo-Irish poet Cecil Day-Lewis. His father had lived mainly in England from the age of two and later became the United Kingdom's Poet Laureate. His mother's family was Jewish and originated in the Baltics. His maternal grandfather, Sir Michael Balcon, was the head of Ealing Studios. Two years after his birth, the family moved to Croom's Hill, Greenwich, where Day-Lewis grew up along with his older sister, Tamasin Day-Lewis, who became a documentary filmmaker and television chef.

His first major supporting role in a feature film was in The Bounty (1984), quickly followed by My Beautiful Laundrette (1985) and A Room with a View (1985). The latter two films opened in New York on the same day, offering audiences and critics evidence of his remarkable range and establishing him as a major talent. The New York Film Critics named him Best Supporting Actor for those performances. In 1986, he appeared on stage in Richard Eyre's The Futurists and on television in Eyre's production of "Screen Two: The Insurance Man (#2.7)" (1986). He also had a small role in a British/French film, Nanou (1986). In 1987 he assumed leading-man status in Philip Kaufman's The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1988), followed by a comedic role in the unsuccessful Stars and Bars (1988). His brilliant performance as "Christy Brown" in Jim Sheridan's My Left Foot (1989) won him numerous awards, including The Academy Award for best actor.

He returned to the stage to work again with Eyre, as Hamlet at the National Theater, but was forced to leave the production close to the end of its run because of exhaustion, and has not appeared on stage since. He took a hiatus from film as well until 1992, when he starred in The Last of the Mohicans (1992), a film that met with mixed reviews but was a great success at the box office. He worked with American director Martin Scorsese in The Age of Innocence (1993) in 1994. Subsequently, he teamed again with Jim Sheridan to star in In the Name of the Father (1993), a critically acclaimed performance that earned him another Academy Award nomination. His next project was in the role of John Proctor in father-in-law Arthur Miller's play The Crucible (1996), directed by Nicholas Hytner.

Day-Lewis rarely talks publicly about his personal life. He had a relationship with French actress Isabelle Adjani, which lasted six years and eventually ended after a split and reconciliation. Their son Gabriel Day-Lewis was born in 1995 in New York, several months after the relationship between the two actors had ended. Gabriel now lives with him in Wicklow, attending St. Gerard's School.

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. The couple have two sons, Ronan Cal Day-Lewis (born 14 June 1998) and Cashel Blake Day-Lewis (born in May 2002) and divide their time between their homes in the U.S. and Ireland. Day-Lewis currently holds dual British and Irish citizenship, He became an Irish citizen in 1993. He is a supporter of Millwall Football Club. On 15 July 2010, he received an honorary doctorate in letters from the University of Bristol, in part because of his attendance at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School in his youth. Day-Lewis is an agnostic.

Filmography:

2009 : Nine Guido Contini Satellite Award for Best Cast Motion Picture
Nominated Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Cast
Nominated Golden Globe Award for Best Actor Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
Nominated Satellite Award for Best Actor Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
Nominated Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture
Nominated Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association Award for Best Ensemble
2012 : Lincoln
2013 : Silence

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