Daniel Day-Lewis

Trained the classic way

Daniel Day-Lewis grew up in London and acted with the National Youth Theatre before studying for three years at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. At school he also discovered a lifelong love of woodworking, which would later play a role in his career.

Despite that traditional training, he became known as one of the most committed method actors in film history, spending months living as close as possible to the life of each character.

Living the part

For My Left Foot (1989), about the Irish writer and painter Christy Brown, who had cerebral palsy, Day-Lewis stayed in a wheelchair on set so he could understand the daily challenges of the role. Crew members had to lift him over cables between takes.

For The Last of the Mohicans (1992) he learned to live off the land and added canoe building to his woodworking skills. For Gangs of New York (2002) he played a butcher, and for Phantom Thread (2017), set in 1950s London, he played a fashion designer and studied dressmaking.

A record three Oscars

Day-Lewis is the only man to have won three Academy Awards for Best Actor: for My Left Foot, There Will Be Blood (2007) and Lincoln (2012). He received six Oscar nominations in total, along with four BAFTAs.

He works rarely and chooses roles carefully, which makes every new film an event. In 2014 he was knighted for services to drama.

Stepping away and coming back

Day-Lewis has stepped back from acting more than once. After 1997 he spent time in Italy as an apprentice shoemaker before returning to film. In 2017 he announced his retirement again.

In 2025 he came back to the screen in Anemone, a drama he co-wrote with his son, Ronan Day-Lewis, who also directed it. For fans of acting as a craft, his return was one of the most talked-about comebacks of the year.

Method acting, explained

Method acting is an approach in which actors try to live through the thoughts and feelings of their character, often by staying in character between takes and learning the character's real-world skills.

Not every actor works this way, and many great performances come from other methods. But Day-Lewis is often named as the clearest modern example of what full commitment to a role can look like on screen.

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