1957-present
Daniel Day-Lewis Now: Oscar Winner Returns to Acting for Anemone
Oscar winner Daniel Day-Lewis is coming back to the big screen.
On October 2, Focus Features announced Day-Lewis, 67, is ending his seven-year hiatus from acting to star in Anemone, directed by his son Ronan Day-Lewis. Daniel also serves as a co-writer for the movie, which “explores the intricate relationships between fathers, sons, and brothers, and the dynamics of familial bonds.”
The actor’s last movie was the 2017 period drama Phantom Thread. Shortly after the project, he spoke to W Magazine about why he quit acting. “All my life, I’ve mouthed off about how I should stop acting, and I don’t know why it was different this time, but the impulse to quit took root in me, and that became a compulsion,” Day-Lewis said.
Anemone doesn’t have a release date yet.
Who Is Daniel Day-Lewis?
British actor Daniel Day-Lewis is a three-time Academy Award winner known for his roles in the movies My Left Foot, There Will Be Blood, and the biopic Lincoln about former U.S. President Abraham Lincoln. He made his film debut in 1971’s Sunday Bloody Sunday and has become known for his dedication to method acting to prepare for roles. Day-Lewis is married to filmmaker Rebecca Miller, the daughter of photographer Inge Morath and playwright Arthur Miller. Knighted in 2014, the acclaimed performer announced his retirement from acting in June 2017 but is returning to the screen for a movie called Anemone directed by his son Ronan.
Quick Facts
FULL NAME: Daniel Michael Blake Day-Lewis
BORN: April 29, 1957
BIRTHPLACE: London, England
SPOUSE: Rebecca Miller (1996-present)
CHILDREN: Gabriel-Kane, Ronan, and Cashel
ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Taurus
Young Daniel Day-Lewis
Daniel Day-Lewis was born on April 29, 1957, into a well-to-do and creative family in London. His father, Cecil Day-Lewis, was a writer who was England’s poet laureate for the last four years of his life. His mother, Jill Balcon, was an actor.
His poor behavior at a South London public school prompted his parents to send Daniel to a private school in Kent, called Sevenoaks. He didn’t fare much better there.
Despite his lack of success in school, Daniel had plenty of other talents. He shared the Balcon family inclination to act, but he was initially more drawn to working-class pursuits than the stage. Enamored with woodworking and craftsmanship as a teenager, he focused for a time on these outlets rather than on acting.
Eventually, he applied to a theater program. He was accepted to the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School and threw himself fully into the craft of drama.
Movies and Oscars
After his years at the Bristol Old Vic and several stage appearances, Day-Lewis landed a small film role in Gandhi (1982). He continued to appear in movies and plays for several years, during which time he developed into one of the most skilled actors in the profession.
Applying the same ethos to drama as he did to woodworking, Day-Lewis became a method actor, devoting himself physically, psychologically, and emotionally to getting in character for each of his roles. He once explained his preparations for roles this way: “I don’t rehearse at all in film if I can help it. In talking a character through, you define it. And if you define it, you kill it dead.”
The actor is also known for taking long hiatuses between movies, breaking the mold of a leading man who churns out a hit every year. On taking the acting path less traveled, Day-Lewis once said: “I couldn’t do this work at all unless I did it in my own rhythm. It became a choice between stopping and taking the time I needed.”
First Oscar for My Left Foot
Day-Lewis shifted between theater and film for most of the early 1980s. He joined the Royal Shakespeare Company and appeared alongside stars Anthony Hopkins and Laurence Olivier in the 1984 movie The Bounty.
In 1986, Day-Lewis’ career started to take off with his acclaimed role in A Room with a View. His first leading role came shortly after, in 1987, when he starred opposite Juliette Binoche in The Unbearable Lightness of Being, based on the Milan Kundera novel. To prepare for the role, Day-Lewis learned Czech, and he subsequently stayed in character for the entire eight-month shoot.
Day-Lewis also dove deep into his next role, playing Christy Brown in My Left Foot (1989). To get into character, the actor stayed in a wheelchair, even off-camera, requiring the crew to move him around and injuring two ribs as he embodied his character’s paralysis. His hard work paid off when he took home the Oscar and a British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) Award for best actor, among a slew of other accolades.
Following this success, Day-Lewis took a break from Hollywood and returned to the stage for several years. In 1992, he returned to film with a starring role in Last of the Mohicans. His second Academy Award nomination was for his performance in the popular In the Name of the Father (1993). Day-Lewis’ next two movies were commercially successful period pieces: The Age of Innocence (1993) and The Crucible (1996).
After shooting the movie The Boxer in 1997, Day-Lewis unexpectedly moved to Italy to become an apprentice to a shoemaker, effectively cutting himself off from celebrity life. He has been reluctant to talk about his time out of the public eye, saying, “it was a period of my life that I had a right to without any intervention of that kind.”
In 2002, though, he was back in front of the camera for a much-lauded performance as Bill the Butcher in Martin Scorsese’s Gangs of New York. Day-Lewis rounded up another Oscar nomination for his role as the knife-wielding gangster and won another BAFTA for best actor.
Oscars for There Will Be Blood and Lincoln
Day-Lewis gave another stunning performance in the 2007 film There Will Be Blood. An extended period of time was needed to raise funds for the movie, which gave the actor two whole years to prepare for his role as an 1880s prospector. “I like to learn about things,” Day-Lewis said of his preparation. “It was just a great time trying to conceive of the impossibility of that thing. I didn’t know anything about mining at the turn of the century in America. My boarding school in Kent didn’t exactly teach that.”
The effort resulted in another Academy Award for Best Actor. “My deepest thanks to the members of the Academy for whacking me with the handsomest bludgeon in town,” Day-Lewis said in his February 2008 acceptance speech.
Day-Lewis landed a starring role in the 2009 movie Nine, directed by Rob Marshall. Once again, his performance was met with critical acclaim and award nominations.
In 2012, Day-Lewis took on another challenging part, playing Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States, in the Steven Spielberg–directed biopic Lincoln, which was based on a book by Doris Kearns Goodwin. The cast also included Sally Field as Mary Todd Lincoln and Joseph Gordon-Levitt as his son Robert.
Day-Lewis’ portrayal of the former president earned him his third Oscar for Best Actor. He is the first man to win the award three times.
Retirement and Return to Acting
In 2014, Prince William knighted Day-Lewis for his services to drama. Three years later, in June 2017, Day-Lewis surprisingly announced his retirement. A spokeswoman said in a statement: “Daniel Day-Lewis will no longer be working as an actor. He is immensely grateful to all of his collaborators and audiences over the many years. This is a private decision, and neither he nor his representatives will make any further comment on this subject.”
For his last movie, the Oscar winner starred in Phantom Thread, a period drama about the London fashion world. The feature was directed by Paul Thomas Anderson and released on December 25, 2017. Late that year, prior to his Golden Globe and Oscar nominations for his lead role in the movie, Day-Lewis opened up about his decision to retire. “Before making the film, I didn’t know I was going to stop acting,” he told W Magazine. “I do know that Paul and I laughed a lot before we made the movie. And then we stopped laughing because we were both overwhelmed by a sense of sadness. That took us by surprise: We didn’t realize what we had given birth to. It was hard to live with.”
Day-Lewis revealed he had flirted with quitting for a long time, one reason he took such lengthy breaks between roles. He also said he had plenty of interests to keep him busy—including woodworking, painting, and scriptwriting—though he admitted to being unsure of himself as he moved forward from the career that made him world famous. “I have great sadness,” he said. “And that’s the right way to feel. How strange would it be if this was just a gleeful step into a brand-new life. I’ve been interested in acting since I was 12 years old, and back then, everything other than the theater—that box of light—was cast in shadow. When I began, it was a question of salvation. Now, I want to explore the world in a different way.”
Day-Lewis made few public appearances over the next few years. One was at the National Board of Review Awards in January 2024, where he reunited with director Martin Scorsese. This fueled rumors the pair might collaborate for another movie. Instead, it was announced in October that Day-Lewis would end his acting hiatus by co-writing and starring in Anemone, an upcoming movie directed by his son Ronan Day-Lewis. The film doesn’t have a release date.
Wife and Children
It was on the set of The Crucible that Day-Lewis met Rebecca Miller, the daughter of playwright Arthur Miller. The two began a romance and eventually married on November 13, 1996.
The couple has two children together, Ronan Day-Lewis and Cashel Day-Lewis. Daniel also has one son, Gabriel-Kane Day-Lewis, from a previous relationship with French actor Isabelle Adjani.
In addition to his writing and filmmaking, Ronan is a painter whose solo exhibition debuted in October 2024 in Hong Kong. Meanwhile, Cashel is a musician and composer who plays the Irish fiddle.
Net Worth
According to Celebrity Net Worth, Day-Lewis’ total fortune is estimated around $40 million as of September 2024.
Quotes
- I don’t rehearse at all in film if I can help it. In talking a character through, you define it. And if you define it, you kill it dead.
- 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.
- I couldn’t do this work at all unless I did it in my own rhythm.
- You can never fully put your finger on the reason why you’re suddenly, inexplicably compelled to explore one life as opposed to another.
- The whole thing of weight, I guess it’s because there is a wider fascination we all have with weight.
- There must’ve been some part of me that wanted to make my mark. But there was never a defining moment.
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