Day-Lewis was born in London in 1957 to a theatrical family. His mother was an actress and his father was the poet Cecil Day-Lewis. He spent much of his childhood on the move due to his father’s job as a teacher, but eventually settled in England and attended school at the Bedales School in Hampshire. Day-Lewis had a difficult time in school and eventually dropped out at the age of 16 to pursue his acting career.
Day-Lewis began his acting career in the early 1980s with a handful of small roles on stage and on television. His breakthrough performance came in 1985 when he played the lead role in the film “My Beautiful Laundrette”. The film was a critical and commercial success, and Day-Lewis quickly became one of the most sought-after actors in the industry. He followed up his breakout role with a string of acclaimed performances in films like “The Unbearable Lightness of Being” and “A Room With a View”.
In the 1990s, Day-Lewis cemented his reputation as one of the greatest actors of his generation with a string of iconic performances. He won his first Academy Award for Best Actor in 1989 for his role in “My Left Foot”, in which he played a man with cerebral palsy. Day-Lewis received critical acclaim for his performances in “The Last of the Mohicans” and “Gangs of New York”, and won his second Academy Award for his role in “There Will Be Blood”.
Despite his incredible success, Day-Lewis has always been notoriously selective about the roles he takes on. He is known for taking extended breaks from acting between projects to fully immerse himself in his characters. He once took a five-year break from acting in the late 1990s to pursue a career as a cobbler, and has been known to stay in character even when the cameras stop rolling. Day-Lewis is also famous for putting his body through incredible transformations for his roles, often losing or gaining significant amounts of weight to fully inhabit his characters.
In 2012, Day-Lewis won his third Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in “Lincoln”. He became the first actor in history to win three Academy Awards in the Best Actor category. After his win, Day-Lewis announced that he was retiring from acting, stating that he felt he had done all he could in the profession.
Day-Lewis’s retirement came as a shock to many in the industry, but it was a fitting end to a remarkable career. With his incredible talent, dedication, and hard work, Day-Lewis has left an indelible mark on the world of film. His performances will always be remembered as some of the greatest in cinema history, and his legacy as one of the greatest actors of all time is secure.