Daniel Day-Lewis

(October 1997) Ranked #25 in Empire magazines "The Top 100 Movie Stars of All Time" list.

Moving to County Wicklow, Ireland, he assumed Irish citizenship.

Was in a relationship with Isabelle Adjani from 1989 to 1994; they had one son together.

Younger brother of Tamasin Day-Lewis.

Chosen by People magazine as one of the 50 Most Beautiful People in the World.

Chosen by Empire magazine as one of the "100 Sexiest Stars" in film history (#11).

Several times offered and turned down the role of Aragorn (Strider) in Peter Jackson s Lord of the Rings trilogy. The role went to Viggo Mortensen.

According to Harvey Weinstein , Day-Lewis was taking time off to work as a cobbler in Florence, Italy when Weinstein, director Martin Scorsese and star Leonardo DiCaprio lured him into coming back to New York "on false pretenses" so they could persuade him to accept lead role in Gangs of New York .

Describes himself as "a lifelong study of evasion".

According to Gangs of New York co-star John C. Reilly , he got sick during shooting in Italy, refusing to trade his characters threadbare coat for a warmer coat because the warmer coat did not exist in the 19th century; doctors finally forced him to take antibiotics.

On February 25, 2003, he announced that he would star in Rose and the Snake, co-written and directed by his wife, Rebecca Miller. The film was later renamed The Ballad of Jack and Rose .

Chosen by People magazine as one of the 50 Most Beautiful People in the World.

Is a skilled woodworker in addition to being able to make his living as a cobbler.

He listened to Eminem to get into an angry, self-righteous frame of mind as Bill the Butcher while shooting Gangs of New York .

He was Jonathan Demme s first choice for the role of Andrew Beckett in Philadelphia . He turned down the role to work on In the Name of the Father and Tom Hanks was cast in Philadelphia instead. He earned an Oscar nomination for best actor in In the Name of the Father , but Hanks won the Best Actor Oscar for Philadelphia .

His father was of Northern Irish and English descent. His mother was from a Jewish family that immigrated to the United Kingdom from Latvia and Poland.

He was the first of three consecutive British actors to win the Oscar for Best Actor in a leading role, Jeremy Irons being next and Anthony Hopkins the third. Each of them coincidentally won at their first nomination in the Academy Awards.

Joan Allen plays his wife in The Crucible . Emily Watson plays his wife in The Boxer . Both have played Reba McLain. Allen played the role in Manhunter , Watson played the role in the remake Red Dragon .

Was considered for the role of Jesus Christ in The Passion of the Christ , but director Mel Gibson thought he looked "too European". The role instead went to Jim Caviezel.

Frequently called the "English Robert De Niro ". He recently referred to De Niro as his champion.

Considered doing an adaptation of "Rose and the Snake" in the early 1990s, but the project fell through. After marrying Rebecca Miller , she convinced him to take the lead role and directed him in the adaptation The Ballad of Jack and Rose .

After Michael Madsen was found to be unavailable for the role, Day-Lewis tried to get the role of Vincent Vega in Pulp Fiction , one of the few times he actively pursued a role. However, by that point in the casting, Quentin Tarantino had John Travolta in mind for the role.

Hated being at Sevenoaks School so much that he ran away.

While filming Gangs of New York he rarely got out of character and would talk with a New York accent the whole day and would be sharpening his knives at lunch.

His performance as Christy Brown in My Left Foot: The Story of Christy Brown is ranked #11 on Premiere magazines 100 Greatest Performances of All Time.

His performance as Bill "The Butcher" Cutting in Gangs of New York is ranked #53 on Premiere magazines 100 Greatest Performances of All Time.

Son of Nicholas Blake and Jill Balcon. Grandson of Michael Balcon.

Has appeared in the novel "That Must Be Yoshino".

Turned down the leading role of Steven Soderbergh s Solaris . The role instead went to George Clooney.

While filming The Ballad of Jack and Rose on Prince Edward Island, Canada, he lived alone in a hut on the beach, away from his wife, director Rebecca Miller , and their children.

Late in the run of the 1989 production of "Hamlet" at the National Theatre in London, he reported that he had a strange sensation that he was talking to his father, who died of pancreatic cancer when Daniel was age 15. Unnerved, he walked off the stage and never returned. He still doesnt like to talk about it.

During The Last of the Mohicans he built a canoe, learned to track and skin animals, and perfected the use of a 12-pound flintlock gun, which he took everywhere he went, even to a Christmas dinner.

Dedicated his 2008 SAG Award to Heath Ledger , who was one of his favorite actors.

Has dual citizenship between the United Kingdom and Ireland.

Was director Alex Cox s second choice for the role of Sid Vicious in Sid and Nancy . The role went to Gary Oldman.

Is a supporter of the Millwall Football Club.

Trained at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School where colleagues included Miranda Richardson and Greta Scacchi.

Owns homes in the United States and Ireland.

Got to know his future wife Rebecca Miller while working on The Crucible , the film version of her father Arthur Miller s play.

Is the first non-American actor to win three Academy Awards for Best Actor. Also the first actor anywhere to win three Oscars in that category--the 2013 Oscar for Lincoln was his third.

Dedicated his 2008 Oscar to his grandfather, film studio boss Michael Balcon , his poet father Nicholas Blake (aka Cecil Day-Lewis), and his three sons Gabriel-Kane Day Lewis (born April 9, 1995), Ronan Cal Day-Lewis (born June 14, 1998) and Cashel Blake Day-Lewis.

He won 23 acting awards for his performance in There Will Be Blood , including the coveted Oscar.

My Beautiful Laundrette and A Room with a View both opened in New York on the same day--March 7, 1986. Both featured him in prominent and very different roles: in "A Room with a View" he played a repressed, snobbish Edwardian upperclassman, while in "My Beautiful Laundrette" he played a lower-class, gay ex-skinhead in love with an ambitious Pakistani businessman in Margaret Thatcher s London. When American critics saw him--he was then virtually unknown in the US--in two such different roles on the same day, many (including Roger Ebert of The Chicago Sun-Times and Vincent Canby of The New York Times) raved about the talent it must have taken him to play such vastly different characters.

Is one of 11 actors to have won the Academy Award, BAFTA Award, Critics Choice Award, Golden Globe Award and SAG Award for the same performance ( There Will Be Blood and Lincoln ). The others in chronological order are Geoffrey Rush for Shine , Jamie Foxx for Ray , Philip Seymour Hoffman for Capote , Forest Whitaker for The Last King of Scotland , Javier Bardem for No Country for Old Men , Heath Ledger for The Dark Knight , Christoph Waltz for Inglourious Basterds , Colin Firth for The Kings Speech , Christopher Plummer for Beginners , and J.K. Simmons for Whiplash .

Son-in-law of photographer Inge Morath and playwright Arthur Miller.

(December 2009) His performance as Daniel Plainview in There Will Be Blood was listed as third in TotalFilms "150 Greatest Movie Performances of All Time".

Turned down a role in Terminator Salvation .

Zack Snyder offered him the role of Jor-El in Man of Steel , which went to Russell Crowe.

Turned down the lead role in Mary Reilly , which went to John Malkovich.

Turned down a role in Cutthroat Island .

Sir John Gielgud said that "he had what every actor in Hollywood wants: talent. And what every actor in England wants: looks".

Turned down the lead role in The English Patient , which went to Ralph Fiennes.

Turned down the role of Simon Templar in The Saint , which went to Val Kilmer.

Turned down the lead role in a film based on mass murderer Dennis Nilsen.

He originally decided to become a cabinet maker but was not accepted for an apprenticeship.

Always quiet and introverted, he said that he was not popular in school and was mocked as an outsider while growing up in England, partially because he was of half Jewish stock. The upside was that, instead of socializing, he developed a rich fantasy life that later helped him to delve so deeply into his characters.

He first became interested in acting when he learned to replicate the accent and mannerisms of people in his neighborhood to avoid standing out to bullies.

The longest he has gone without an Oscar nomination is 9 years, between In the Name of the Father and Gangs of New York .

Is the second actor to have received a Best Actor Oscar nomination for portraying Abraham Lincoln ; the other is Raymond Massey in Abe Lincoln in Illinois .

Is one of five actors to have won the Academy Award three times in their career; the others in chronological order are Walter Brennan , Ingrid Bergman , Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep. These actors have only been surpassed by Katharine Hepburn , who won the Academy Award four times during her career.

Dedicated his 2013 Best Actor Oscar to his late mother, actress Jill Balcon.

Is the first actor to win an Oscar for playing a U.S. President, and the first to win for playing Abraham Lincoln. Only one other actor, Raymond Massey , has been Oscar-nominated for playing the role; despite turning in a critically acclaimed performance as Lincoln in Young Mr. Lincoln , Henry Fonda was not nominated for his performance.

On March 19, 2013, a two-DVD set entitled "Daniel Day-Lewis Triple Feature", a compilation of much of the actors performances on British TV programs from 1982 to 1986, was released in the United States by BBC Home Entertainment.

One of Time magazines 100 Most Influential People in the World.

(May 2013) Received an honorary degree from the Juilliard School in Manhattan, New York City.

He partook in the 2013 Millie Miglia driving a 1953 Jaguar XK 120. His co-driver was James Gianopulos , the Chairman and CEO of Fox Filmed Entertainment.

In 2013, he used the international premiere of his film Lincoln in Ireland as a fundraiser for the Wicklow Hospice Foundation.

Became a father for the first time at age 37 when his ex-girlfriend Isabelle Adjani gave birth to their son Gabriel-Kane Day Lewis on April 9, 1995.

Became a father for the second time at age 41 when his wife Rebecca Miller gave birth to their son Ronan Cal Day-Lewis on June 14, 1998.

Became a father for the third time at age 45 when his wife Rebecca Miller gave birth to their son Cashel Blake Day-Lewis in May 2002.

In Gangs of New York his character "The Butcher" throws a knife at a picture of President Abraham Lincoln , hitting him right between the eyes. Ten years later he starred in Steven Spielberg s Lincoln , playing the president himself.

As of 2014, has appeared in seven films that were nominated for the Best Picture Oscar: Gandhi , A Room with a View , My Left Foot: The Story of Christy Brown , In the Name of the Father , Gangs of New York , There Will Be Blood and Lincoln . Gandhi won in the category.

Is not only the first actor to receive three Best Actor Oscars, but the only British actor to receive at least two Best Actor Oscars.

He was awarded Knight Bachelor of the Order of the British Empire in the 2014 Queens Birthday Honours List for his services to drama.

His Oscar for Lincoln makes he and Raymond Massey the eighth pair of male actors to be nominated for playing the same role (Massey for Abe Lincoln in Illinois , and he is the only actor to win when his predecessor had lost. Charles Laughton and Richard Burton were both nominated for playing King Henry VIII (Burton for Anne of the Thousand Days , Laughton for The Private Life of Henry VIII. ), for which Laughton won. Robert Donat and Peter OToole were both nominated for playing Mr. Chips (Donat in Goodbye, Mr. Chips , OToole for Goodbye, Mr. Chips ), which Donat won. John Wayne and Jeff Bridges were both nominated for playing Rooster Cogburn (Wayne in True Grit , Bridges in True Grit , which Wayne won. Marlon Brando and Robert De Niro both won for playing Vito Corleone (Brando in The Godfather , De Niro for The Godfather: Part II ). Jos Ferrer and Grard Depardieu were both nominated for playing Cyrano de Bergerac (Ferrer for Cyrano de Bergerac , Depardieu for Cyrano de Bergerac ), and Ferrer won. Anthony Hopkins and Frank Langella were both nominated for playing Richard Nixon (Hopkins in Nixon , Langella for Frost/Nixon ); both lost. Jason Robards and Leonardo DiCaprio were both nominated for playing Howard Hughes (Robards for Melvin and Howard , DeCaprio for The Aviator ); both lost.

On June 20, 2017, he announced that he was retiring from acting and that Phantom Thread would be his last acting role. His US agent said that this was a private decision and that no further comment would be made on the subject.

Life comes first. What I see in the characters, I first try to see in,life.

Playing the part of Christy Brown [in,My Left Foot: The Story of Christy Brown (1989) ] left me with a,sense of setting myself on a course, of trying to achieve something,that was utterly out of reach.

And God help us, that is, in itself, a reason not to do something.

[on researching his role as Plainview in,There Will Be Blood (2007) ] Back then men would get the fever.

[on researching his role as Plainview in,There Will Be Blood (2007) ] I read a lot of correspondence,dating from that period. Decent middle-class lives with wives and,children were abandoned to pursue this elusive possibility. They were,bank clerks and shipping agents and teachers. They all fled West for a,sniff of cheap money. And they made it up as they went along. No one,knew how to drill for oil. Initially, they scooped it out of the ground,in saucepans. It was man at his most animalistic, sifting through filth,to find bright, sparkly things.

[on applying to theater school, the Bristol Old Vic] I picked just one,because then it would be a sign from the gods if it was not meant to,be.

I knew that dichotomy was possible. England is obsessed with where you,came from, and they are determined to keep you in that place, be it in,a drawing room or in the gutter. The great tradition of liberalism in,England is essentially a sponge that absorbs all possibility of change.

[on choosing film roles] I begin with a sense of mystery. In other,words, I am intrigued by a life that seems very far removed from my,own. And I have a sense of curiosity to discover that life and maybe,change places with it for a while.

I would wish for any one of my colleagues to have the experience of working with Martin Scorsese once in their lifetime.

Where I come from, it was a heresy to say you wanted to be in movies, leave alone American movies.