ACTOR · BORN 1957
Daniel Day-Lewis
- Born
- 29 April 1957
76 archived facts 4 topics 1 source Last reviewed Sep 2026
All facts (76)
- #001
According to John C. Reilly, his co-star in Gangs of New York (2002), Daniel Day-Lewis fell ill during filming in Italy and refused to swap his character's worn coat for a warmer one because a warmer coat did not exist in the 19th century; doctors eventually forced him to take antibiotics.
- #002
While filming Gangs of New York (2002), Daniel Day-Lewis listened to Eminem to get into an angry, arrogant state of mind for the role of Bill the Butcher.
- #003
During The Last of the Mohicans (1992), Daniel Day-Lewis built a canoe, learned to track animals and skin them, and perfected the use of a 12-pound flintlock gun that he took everywhere with him, even to Christmas dinner.
- #004
For his performance in There Will Be Blood (2007), Daniel Day-Lewis won 23 acting awards, including the widely acclaimed Oscar.
- #005
After Heath Ledger's sudden death in January 2008, Day-Lewis dedicated his 2008 SAG Award to Ledger, one of his favourite actors.
- #006
Sir John Gielgud said: "he had what every actor in Hollywood wants: talent. And what every actor in England wants: looks".
- #007
While filming Gangs of New York (2002), Daniel Day-Lewis rarely broke character, speaking in a New York accent all day and sharpening his knives at lunch.
- #008
Daniel Day-Lewis is often called the "English Robert De Niro". He also named De Niro as his champion when discussing his greatest acting inspirations, alongside Marlon Brando, Meryl Streep and Phil Davis.
- #009
Daniel Day-Lewis first became interested in acting when he learned to imitate the accents and mannerisms of people in his neighbourhood in order not to stand out to bullies.
- #010
He was Jonathan Demme's first choice for the role of Andrew Beckett in Philadelphia (1993). He turned it down to work on In the Name of the Father (1993), and Tom Hanks was cast in the Philadelphia (1993) role instead. He earned an Oscar nomination for Best Actor for In the Name of the Father (1993), but Hanks won the Best Actor Oscar for Philadelphia (1993).
- #011
Daniel Day-Lewis initially decided to become a carpenter but was not accepted as an apprentice.
- #012
Daniel Day-Lewis was offered the role of Aragorn (Strider) in Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings trilogy several times and turned it down. The role went to Viggo Mortensen.
- #013
He is one of six actors to have won the Academy Award three times; the others, in chronological order, are Walter Brennan, Ingrid Bergman, Jack Nicholson, Meryl Streep and Frances McDormand. Only Katharine Hepburn, who won four Oscars over her career, surpassed these actors (McDormand's fourth Oscar was in the Best Picture category rather than for acting).
- #014
On 20 June 2017, Daniel Day-Lewis announced that he was retiring from acting and that his final acting role would be Phantom Thread (2017). His US representative said it was a private decision and that no further comment would be made on the matter.
- #015
Daniel Day-Lewis, always a quiet and introverted person, has said he was not popular at school and was mocked as an outsider while growing up in England, partly because of his half-Jewish background. On the positive side, instead of socialising he developed a rich fantasy life that later helped him delve deep into his characters.
- #016
In 2013, Daniel Day-Lewis used the Irish international premiere of Lincoln (2012) as a fundraising event for the Wicklow Hospice Foundation.
- #017
Daniel's father was of Northern Irish and English descent and was the son of Reverend Frank Cecil Day-Lewis and Kathleen Blake Squires. Daniel's mother came from a Jewish family that emigrated to the United Kingdom from Latvia and Poland, and was the daughter of Michael Elias Balcon and Aileen Freda Leatherman.
- #018
In addition to making his living as a shoemaker, Daniel Day-Lewis is a skilled woodworker.
- #019
Daniel Day-Lewis was nominated for the Best Actor Oscar six times, and the films he appeared in were also nominated for Best Picture and Best Director in the same years.
- #020
Daniel Day-Lewis holds dual citizenship of the United Kingdom and Ireland.
- #021
Daniel Day-Lewis describes himself as "a lifelong study of evasion."
- #022
My Beautiful Laundrette (1985) and A Room with a View (1986) opened in New York on the same day, 7 March 1986, with Day-Lewis in major and very different roles in each: a repressed, snobbish upper-class Edwardian man in A Room with a View, and a working-class gay former skinhead in love with an ambitious Pakistani businessman in Thatcher's London in My Beautiful Laundrette. When American critics saw him in two different roles on the same day (he was then barely known in the US), many — including Roger Ebert of The Chicago Sun-Times and Vincent Canby of The New York Times — heaped praise on the range this display of such different characters revealed.
- #023
According to Harvey Weinstein, Day-Lewis was taking a break to work as a shoemaker in Florence, Italy, when Weinstein, director Martin Scorsese and star Leonardo DiCaprio persuaded him to return to New York "on false pretenses," which allowed them to convince him to take the lead role in Gangs of New York (2002).
- #024
Daniel Day-Lewis hated Sevenoaks School so much that he ran away.
- #025
Day-Lewis's performance as Bill "The Butcher" Cut in Gangs of New York (2002) ranked 53rd on Premiere magazine's list of the 100 Greatest Performances of All Time (2006).
- #026
While filming The Ballad of Jack and Rose (2005) on Prince Edward Island, Canada, Day-Lewis lived alone in a beach hut, away from his wife, director Rebecca Miller, and their children.
- #027
Day-Lewis's role as Christy Brown in My Left Foot (1989) ranked 11th on Premiere magazine's list of the 100 Greatest Performances of All Time (2006).
- #028
Day-Lewis is one of 13 actors to win the Oscar, BAFTA Award, Critics' Choice Award, Golden Globe Award and SAG Award for the same performance (There Will Be Blood (2007) and Lincoln (2012)). In chronological order the others are: Geoffrey Rush for Shine (1996), Jamie Foxx for Ray (2004), Philip Seymour Hoffman for Capote (2005), Forest Whitaker for The Last King of Scotland (2006), Javier Bardem for No Country for Old Men (2007), Heath Ledger for The Dark Knight (2008), Christoph Waltz for Inglourious Basterds (2009), Colin Firth for The King's Speech (2010), Christopher Plummer for Beginners (2010), J. K. Simmons for Whiplash (2014), Leonardo DiCaprio for The Revenant (2015), Sam Rockwell for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017) and Gary Oldman for Darkest Hour (2017).
- #029
Daniel Day-Lewis received an honorary degree from the Juilliard School in Manhattan, New York City.
- #030
During the run of a production of "Hamlet" at the National Theatre in London in 1989, Day-Lewis reported having a strange feeling that he was talking to his father, who had died of pancreatic cancer when Daniel was 15. He walked off the stage, shaken, and never returned; he still dislikes talking about it.
- #031
Day-Lewis was the first of three British actors to win the Best Actor Oscar in a leading role. He won for his performance in My Left Foot (1989); Jeremy Irons was second, for Reversal of Fortune (1990), and Anthony Hopkins third, for The Silence of the Lambs (1991). Each of them happened to win on his first Oscar nomination.
- #032
Day-Lewis became a father for the first time at 37, when his former girlfriend Isabelle Adjani gave birth to their son Gabriel-Kane Day Lewis on 9 April 1995.
- #033
Day-Lewis's performance as Daniel Plainview in There Will Be Blood (2007) ranked third on TotalFilm's "150 Greatest Movie Performances of All Time" list.
- #034
Day-Lewis dedicated his 2008 Oscar to his grandfather, film studio boss Michael Balcon, his poet father Cecil Day-Lewis, and his three sons Gabriel-Kane Day Lewis (born 9 April 1995), Ronan Cal Day-Lewis (born 14 June 1998) and Cashel Blake Day-Lewis (born May 2002).
- #035
Day-Lewis appeared in the musical film Nine (2009) and said in an interview that he normally does not rehearse for a film, but that on this one he was forced to.
- #036
Day-Lewis appeared in eight films nominated for the Best Picture Oscar: Gandhi (1982), A Room with a View (1986), My Left Foot (1989), In the Name of the Father (1993), Gangs of New York (2002), There Will Be Blood (2007), Lincoln (2012) and Phantom Thread (2017). Gandhi won in the category.
- #037
Zack Snyder offered Day-Lewis the role of Jor-El in Man of Steel (2013), which went to Russell Crowe.
- #038
Daniel Day-Lewis turned down the lead role in The English Patient (1996), which went to Ralph Fiennes.
- #039
Daniel Day-Lewis was in a relationship with Isabelle Adjani from 1989 to 1994; they had a son together, Gabriel-Kane Day Lewis.
- #040
The longest gap in Daniel Day-Lewis's Oscar nominations was the nine years between In the Name of the Father (1993) and Gangs of New York (2002).
- #041
Daniel Day-Lewis became the first actor to win an Oscar for playing a US President, and the first to win for playing Abraham Lincoln. Only one other actor has been nominated for playing the role, Raymond Massey; Henry Fonda was not nominated for his acclaimed performance as Lincoln in Young Mr. Lincoln (1939).
- #042
Daniel Day-Lewis was director Alex Cox's second choice for the role of Sid Vicious in Sid and Nancy (1986). The part went to Gary Oldman.
- #043
Daniel Day-Lewis dedicated his 2013 Best Actor Oscar to his late mother, the actress Jill Balcon.
- #044
Daniel Day-Lewis was appointed a Knight Bachelor of the Order of the British Empire in the 2014 Queen's Birthday Honours for services to drama.
- #045
Daniel Day-Lewis became a father for the third time at the age of 45 when his wife, Rebecca Miller, gave birth to their son Cashel Blake Day-Lewis in May 2002.
- #046
Daniel Day-Lewis was named one of the world's 50 most beautiful people by People magazine.
- #047
Daniel Day-Lewis is a supporter of Millwall Football Club.
- #048
Daniel Day-Lewis trained at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, one of the world's most selective drama schools (and schools of any kind). The school accepts 28 of roughly 2,500 applicants for its three-year BA acting course, an acceptance rate of about 1 percent. His fellow students included Miranda Richardson and Greta Scacchi.
- #049
Daniel Day-Lewis turned down a role in Terminator Salvation (2009).
- #050
Daniel Day-Lewis is the first non-American actor to win three Oscars for Best Actor.
- #051
In Gangs of New York (2002), Daniel Day-Lewis's character, "The Butcher," throws a knife at a picture of President Abraham Lincoln, striking him right between the eyes. Ten years later, in Steven Spielberg's Lincoln (2012), he played the president himself.
- #052
In the early 1990s, Daniel Day-Lewis considered making an adaptation of "Rose and the Snake," but the project fell through. After marrying Rebecca Miller, he persuaded her to take the lead role and she directed him in the adaptation The Ballad of Jack and Rose (2005).
- #053
Daniel Day-Lewis moved to County Wicklow, Ireland, and took Irish citizenship.
- #054
Daniel Day-Lewis was named one of Time magazine's 100 most influential people in the world.
- #055
Daniel Day-Lewis is the second actor to receive a Best Actor Oscar nomination for playing Abraham Lincoln; the other is Raymond Massey for Abe Lincoln in Illinois (1940).
- #056
Daniel Day-Lewis turned down the lead role in Steven Soderbergh's Solaris (2002). The part went to George Clooney instead.
- #057
Daniel Day-Lewis became a father for the second time at the age of 41 when his wife, Rebecca Miller, gave birth to their son Ronan Cal Day-Lewis on 14 June 1998.
- #058
Daniel Day-Lewis has homes in the United States and Ireland.
- #059
Daniel Day-Lewis appeared in the novel "That Must Be Yoshino."
- #060
Daniel Day-Lewis is the younger brother of Tamasin Day-Lewis.
- #061
When Mad Men (2007) first aired, Daniel Day-Lewis was a big fan of the series.
- #062
Daniel Day-Lewis is the son-in-law of photographer Inge Morath and playwright Arthur Miller.
- #063
Daniel Day-Lewis took part in the 2013 Mille Miglia in a 1953 Jaguar XK 120. His co-driver was James Gianopulos, President and CEO of Fox Filmed Entertainment.
- #064
Daniel Day-Lewis turned down the role of Simon Templar in The Saint (1997), which went to Val Kilmer.
- #065
Of the thirteen film roles Daniel Day-Lewis has played since 1989, six earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor.
- #066
Daniel Day-Lewis ranked 25th on Empire (UK) magazine's "The Top 100 Movie Stars of All Time" list.
- #067
On March 19, 2013, BBC Home Entertainment premiered in the United States a two-DVD set titled "Daniel Day-Lewis Triple Feature," a compilation of most of the actor's performances on British TV programs from 1982 to 1986.
- #068
Daniel Day-Lewis's last four Best Actor Oscar nominations came every five years: Gangs of New York (2002), There Will Be Blood (2007), Lincoln (2012) and Phantom Thread (2017).
- #069
As of 2018, Daniel Day-Lewis holds the largest gap between a first and last Best Actor Oscar win, 23 years between My Left Foot (1989) and Lincoln (2012). It is also the longest span between a first and last acting Oscar for any male actor.
- #070
Daniel Day-Lewis was chosen by Empire magazine as one of the "100 Sexiest Stars" in cinema history (#11).
- #071
Daniel Day-Lewis turned down the lead role in a film about the mass murderer Dennis Nilsen.
- #072
Daniel Day-Lewis is the son of Cecil Day-Lewis (aka Cecil Day-Lewis) and Jill Balcon. He is the grandson of Michael Balcon.
- #073
Daniel Day-Lewis turned down the lead role in Mary Reilly (1996), which went to John Malkovich.
- #074
Joan Allen plays Daniel Day-Lewis's wife in The Crucible (1996). Emily Watson plays his wife in The Boxer (1997). Both actresses played Reba McLain. Allen appeared in Manhunter (1986), while Watson appeared in the remake Red Dragon (2002).
- #075
On his podcast, Joe Rogan called Daniel Day-Lewis "the only extraordinary actor there was, and who quit acting."
- #076
Daniel Day-Lewis shares his birthday with Michelle Pfeiffer and Uma Thurman.
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