Daniel Day-Lewis is one of the most selective actors in the film industry, having starred in only four movies in the last 10 years. He is also known for his rigorous research and devotion to his roles as he often remains completely in character for the duration of the shooting schedule of his films.
Born on April 25, 1957 in London, Daniel Day-Lewis is the son of actress Jill Balcon and the Irish-born, British Poet Laureate Cecil Day-Lewis. He has dual British-Irish citizenship.
As a child, Daniel Day-Lewis was considered “too wild” so his parents sent him to Sevenoaks School in Kent as a boarder. Although he detested the school, it was this school that introduced him to two of his most prominent interests, woodworking and acting. Eventually, he excelled onstage at the National Youth Theatre but decided to become a cabinet-maker as he applied for a five-year apprenticeship. Unfortunately, he was rejected due to his lack of experience. Instead, he applied and was accepted at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, which he attended for three years.
Daniel Day-Lewis Lewis maintained an on-and-off career in the theater during the early 1980s, appearing in Edward II, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Look Back in Anger, and Dracula. He also starred in the BBC series Frost in May, How Many Miles to Babylon?, and assumed leading man status by starring in Milan Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being, alongside Lena Olin and Juliette Binoche, as a Czech doctor whose purely physical sex life is thrown into disarray when he allows himself to become emotionally involved with a woman. He also 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.
Aside from the aforementioned movies, Daniel Day-Lewis is also known for his groundbreaking performances in The Last of the Mohicans, In the Name of the Father and There Will Be Blood.