Sir Daniel Day-Lewis is done with acting.
The 60-year old actor says he is retiring after his next film, according to reports.
Leslie Dart, Day-Lewis’ publicist, confirms the news in a statement “Daniel Day-Lewis will no longer be working as an actor. He is immensely grateful to all of his collaborators and audiences over the many years,” she says. “This is a private decision and neither he nor his representatives will make any further comment on this subject.”
His final film will be Phantom Thread, which Paul Thomas Anderson is directing. Both previously worked together ten years ago on There Will Be Blood. Little is known about Phantom Thread, other than it being a drama in the fashion industry.
Known as the “English De Niro”, Day-Lewis is seen as one of the finest actors of all time. He’s known for devoting himself to his roles, as well as refusing to break character. In addition, he doesn’t like to discuss his private life and grants few interviews.
Starting in the theatre, Day-Lewis soon made the jump to feature films in the 1980s, winning supporting roles in Gandhi and The Bounty. A Room With A View would make him into a leading man. By 1989, his role as paralyzed writer Christy Brown in My Left Foot made him a superstar. This is the film in which Day-Lewis began the process of method acting, such as staying in a wheelchair and learning to type with his foot. He went on to win the Oscar for Best Actor.
In the 1990s, Day-Lewis became a sex symbol for his performance as Hawkeye in The Last Of the Mohicans. He would follow that up with playing a troubled attorney in Martin Scorsese’s The Age Of Innocence. His next work was a wrongly imprisoned convict In The Name Of The Father. After making The Crucible and The Boxer, he would take a leave of absence from acting and took up shoemaking.
In 2002, Day-Lewis would make a comeback with Scorsese on Gangs of New York. His role was that of murderous gang leader Bill “The Butcher” Cutting. The film was a success, and Day-Lewis received another Best Actor nomination.
Day-Lewis would earn his second Best Actor trophy for playing antisocial oil magnate Daniel Plainview in There Will Be Blood. The film is though to be one of the greatest films of the 2000s. After that, he did not appear onscreen for two years until starring in the 2009 adaptation of the musical Nine.
Day-Lewis went on to play Abraham Lincoln in Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln. The film was a major hit, and he would win his third Best Actor statuette. He is the only actor to achieve such a record. In 2014, he became a Knight of the British Empire.
Phantom Thread arrives in theatres on December 25, 2017.
