How Daniel Day-Lewis decided which movies to accept
Following his lead role in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Phantom Thread in 2017, for which he earned an Oscar nomination, British actor Daniel Day-Lewis announced his retirement at age 60. The much-mourned hole left in the film industry is only partly filled by Day-Lewis’ staggering filmography, which includes highlight moments like The Last of the Mohicans, My Left Foot, In the Name of the Father, Gangs of New York, and There Will Be Blood.
The devout method actor is one of the most celebrated talents of his generation and has swiped three competitive Academy Awards, four British Academy Film Awards, three SAG Awards and two Golden Globe Awards for his efforts.
Through the early 1980s, Day-Lewis flitted between theatre and film, notably joining the Royal Shakespeare Company and playing Romeo Montague in Romeo and Juliet and Flute in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. In 1989, however, Day-Lewis retired from the stage after breaking down while playing the title role in Hamlet.
When he wasn’t taking on Shakespeare, Day-Lewis enjoyed an impressive variety of leading roles. His versatility would allow him to become the underdog hero, such as Christy Brown or Gerry Conlon, or the uncompromising villain, such as Bill the Butcher or Daniel Plainview.
Day-Lewis’ thirst for versatility may have helped round out his vast talent pool, but it wasn’t so much a yearning for a challenge as it was a quest for immersion and separation from self. As a keen method actor, Day-Lewis was particularly drawn to characters dissimilar from his personality.
In a conversation with CBC in 1988, Day-Lewis explained how he chose which roles to pursue. “I tend really to only work on things that I have a kind of compulsion to do. The things that most interest me tend to be some distance from my own life, and they tend to be at some distance from the characters that have interested me before as well.”
Later in the interview, the British actor reflected on the downside of his newfound fame following the success of his 1985 movies, A Room with a View and My Beautiful Laundrette. “I don’t like noise. I don’t like the clutter of, you know, too much of that because it always distracts you from what you’re actually trying to get on and do, which is to just work on the things that interest you.”
“It is true that with the advent of those two films, particularly, that was as much to do with the coincidence of timing as anything else,” he added. “In America, they appeared on the same day in the same on the same block in New York. (…) But anyway, it seemed to generate, from my point of view, an unnatural amount of attention. But I don’t want to sound ungrateful for the fact that… I get enormous pleasure from people’s surprise. If people are surprised by the work, then that’s fine.”
Watch Daniel Day-Lewis in the trailer for My Beautiful Laundrette below.
