Daniel Michael Blake Day-Lewis was born in London, England, the second child of Cecil Day-Lewis (Poet Laureate of England) and his second wife, Jill Balcon. His maternal grandfather was Sir Michael Balcon, an important figure in the history of British cinema, head of the famous Ealing Studios. His older sister, Tamasin Day-Lewis, is a documentary filmmaker. Daniel was educated at Sevenoaks School in Kent, which he despised, and the more progressive Bedales in Petersfield, which he adored. He studied acting at the Bristol Old Vic School. Daniel made his film debut in Sunday Bloody Sunday, but then acted on stage with the Bristol Old Vic and Royal Shakespeare Companies and did not appear on screen again until 1982, when he landed his first adult role, a bit part in Gandhi. He also appeared on British TV that year in Frost in May and How Many Miles to Babylon?. Notable theatrical performances include "Another, Country" (1982-83), "Dracula" (1984), and the "Futurists" (1986).

His first major supporting role in a feature film was in The Bounty, quickly followed by My Beautiful Laundrette and A Room with a View. 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 the "Best Supporting Actor" for those performances. In 1986 he appeared on stage in Richard Eyre's "Futurists" and on television in Eyre's production of The Insurance Man. He also had a small role in a British/French film, Nanou. In 1987 he assumed leading-man status in Philip Kaufman's The Unbearable Lightness of Being, followed by a comedic role in the unsuccessful Stars and Bars. His brilliant performance as Christy Brown in Jim Sheridan's My Left Foot 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, 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 in 1994. Subsequently, he teamed again with Jim Sheridan to star in In the Name of the Father, a critically acclaimed performance that earned him another Academy Award nomination. His next project was in the role of John Proctor in Arthur Miller's play The Crucible, directed by Nicholas Hytner.


The Crucible (1996): $8,000,000

Ranked #25 in Empire (UK) magazine's "The Top 100 Movie Stars of All Time" list (October 1997). Lived together with Isabelle Adjani, who gave birth to their son Gabriel-Kane Day-Lewis on 9 April 1995, from 1989 to 1994. Chosen by People magazine as one of the "50 Most Beautiful People" in the world (1990). Several times offered and turned down the role of Aragorn (Strider) in Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings film trilogy. 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 (2002). According to Gangs of New York (2002) co-star John C. Reilly, he got sick during shooting in Italy, refusing to trade his character's threadbare coat for a warmer coat because the warmer coat did not exist in the 19th century; doctors finally forced him to take antibiotics. Has three sons: Gabriel-Kane Day-Lewis (born on 9 April 1995), Ronan Cal Day-Lewis (born on 14 June 1998) and Cashel Blake Day-Lewis (born in May 2002). Is a skilled woodworker in addition to being able to make his living as a cobbler. He was Jonathan Demme's first choice for the part of Andrew Beckett in Philadelphia (1993). He turned the part down to work on In the Name of the Father (1993) and Tom Hanks was cast in Philadelphia (1993) instead. Day-Lewis earned an Oscar nomination for best actor in In the Name of the Father (1993), but Hanks won the best actor Oscar for Philadelphia (1993), the part Day-Lewis turned down. 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. Was considered for the role of Jesus Christ in The Passion of the Christ (2004), but director Mel Gibson thought he looked "too European" and the part instead went to James Caviezel. Frequently called the "English Robert De Niro." Early in his career, Day-Lewis recently referred to De Niro as his champion. After Michael Madsen was found to be unavailable for the part, Day-Lewis tried to get the role of Vincent Vega in Pulp Fiction (1994), one of the few times he actively pursued a part. However, by that point in the casting, Quentin Tarantino had John Travolta in mind for the part. While filming Gangs of New York (2002) 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 Bill "The Butcher" Cutting in Gangs of New York (2002) is ranked #53 on Premiere Magazine's 100 Greatest Performances of All Time (2006). Born to Nicholas Blake (aka Cecil Day-Lewis) and his second wife Jill Balcon, he lost his father at the age of 15. Turned down leading role of Steven Soderbergh film Solaris (2002). The role instead went to George Clooney. 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 15. Unnerved, he walked off the stage and never returned. He still doesn't like to talk about it. Dedicated his 2008 SAG Award to Heath Ledger who was one of his favorite actors. Was director Alex Cox's second choice for the role of Sid Vicious in Sid and Nancy (1986). Gary Oldman got the part. Trained at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School where colleagues included Miranda Richardson and Greta Scacchi. Got to know his future wife Rebecca Miller while working on the film version of her father Arthur Miller's play "The Crucible". 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 on 9 April 1995), Ronan Cal Day-Lewis (born on 14 June 1998) and Cashel Blake Day-Lewis (born in May 2002). My Beautiful Laundrette (1985) and A Room with a View (1985) both opened in New York on the same day, March 7, 1986. Both movies featured Daniel Day Lewis_ in prominent and very different roles: in Room with a View, he played a repressed, snobbish Edwardian upperclassman, while in Laundrette, he played a lower-class gay ex-skinhead in love with an ambitious Pakistani businessman in Thatcher's London. When American critics saw Day-Lewis, who 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. Was offered the role of Aragorn in the Lord of the Rings trilogy (2001-2003) but declined.