Daniel Day Lewis calls it a day

Hollywood’s one of the most illustrious performers Daniel Day-Lewis, who is the only artiste to ever win three Academy Awards for the best actor, has announced retirement from acting. Day-Lewis’ spokeswoman, Leslee Dart, has confirmed the news in a statement, stating the 60-year-old star “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,” Dart said. 

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Born in London, the actor made his movie debut at the age of 14 with a British drama Sunday Bloody Sunday featuring Murray Head, Glenda Jackson and Peter Finch. The film where he played a vandal in an uncredited role. 

But it was his 1985 romance film A Room with a View which brought him critical acclaim. Based on E M Forster’s 1908 novel of the same name, the film saw Day-Lewis in the role of Cecil Vysea, a wealthy and respectable but snobbish and pretentious man. An alumni of London’s National Youth Theatre, Day-Lewis, is known for his unconditional commitment and dedication to his craft. For his role of a paralysed poet Christy Brown in the 1989 movie My Left Foot, Day-Lewis refused to move from his wheelchair in order to get into the character. The film won him his first Oscar for the best actor. He then starred in The Last of the Mohicans, In the Name of The Father and Martin Scorsese’s Gangs of New York. 

Call me Mr President!  

Day-Lewis received his second best actor Oscar in 2008, for his turn as oil man Daniel Plainview in There Will Be Blood. As Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States, in the 2012 epic historical drama, Day-Lewis started his preparation a year before the movie’s shooting began. In fact, he wanted the film’s director Steven Spielberg to call him Mr. President so that he could get his act right. The role won him his third Academy Award.  

Catch him one last time 

Phantom Thread by director Paul Thomas Anderson, will be Day-Lewis’ last film that also features Lesley Manville, Richard Graham and Vicky Krieps. Set in London’s fashion world in the 1950s, the movie is is written by Anderson himself. It is currently in production. —PTI