- According to Gangs of New York (2002) co-star John C. Reilly, he got sick during shooting in Italy, refusing to trade his character's threadbare coat for a warmer coat because the warmer coat did not exist in the 19th century; doctors finally forced him to take antibiotics.
- He listened to Eminem to get into an angry, self-righteous frame of mind as Bill the Butcher while shooting Gangs of New York (2002).
- During The Last of the Mohicans (1992) he built a canoe, learned to track and skin animals, and perfected the use of a 12-pound flintlock gun, which he took everywhere he went, even to a Christmas dinner.
- He won 23 acting awards for his performance in There Will Be Blood (2007), including the coveted Oscar.
- After Michael Madsen was found to be unavailable for the role, Day-Lewis tried to get the role of Vincent Vega in Pulp Fiction (1994), one of the few times he actively pursued a role. However, by that point in the casting, Quentin Tarantino had John Travolta in mind for the role.
- While filming Gangs of New York (2002) he rarely got out of character and would talk with a New York accent the whole day and would be sharpening his knives at lunch.
- On June 20, 2017, he announced that he was retiring from acting and that Phantom Thread (2017) would be his last acting role. His US agent said that this was a private decision and that no further comment would be made on the subject.
- He first became interested in acting when he learned to replicate the accent and mannerisms of people in his neighborhood to avoid standing out to bullies.
- After Heath Ledger's sudden death in January 2008, Day-Lewis dedicated his 2008 SAG Award to Ledger, who was one of his favorite actors.
- He originally decided to become a cabinet maker but was not accepted for an apprenticeship.
- He was Jonathan Demme's first choice for the role of Andrew Beckett in Philadelphia (1993). He turned down the role to work on In the Name of the Father (1993) and Tom Hanks was cast in Philadelphia (1993) instead. He earned an Oscar nomination for best actor in In the Name of the Father (1993), but Hanks won the Best Actor Oscar for Philadelphia (1993).
- Sir John Gielgud said that "he had what every actor in Hollywood wants: talent. And what every actor in England wants: looks".
- Frequently called the "English Robert De Niro". He has also referred to De Niro as his champion speaking of his biggest acting inspirations, along with Marlon Brando, Meryl Streep and Phil Davis.
- Always quiet and introverted, he said that he was not popular in school and was mocked as an outsider while growing up in England, partially because he was of half Jewish stock. The upside was that, instead of socializing, he developed a rich fantasy life that later helped him to delve so deeply into his characters.
- Is a skilled woodworker in addition to being able to make his living as a cobbler.
- Several times offered and turned down the role of Aragorn (Strider) in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy. The role went to Viggo Mortensen.
- In 2013, he used the international premiere of his film Lincoln (2012) in Ireland as a fundraiser for the Wicklow Hospice Foundation.
- Is one of six actors to have won the Academy Award three times in their career; the others in chronological order are Walter Brennan, Ingrid Bergman, Jack Nicholson, Meryl Streep and Frances McDormand. These actors have only been surpassed by Katharine Hepburn, who won the Academy Award four times during her career (McDormand's fourth Oscar was in the Best Picture category rather than acting).
- Daniel's father was of Northern Irish and English descent, and was the son of The Rev. Frank Cecil Day-Lewis and Kathleen Blake Squires. Daniel's mother was 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.
- My Beautiful Laundrette (1985) and A Room with a View (1985) both opened in New York on the same day--March 7, 1986. Both featured him in prominent and very different roles: in "A Room with a View" he played a repressed, snobbish Edwardian upperclassman, while in "My Beautiful Laundrette" he played a lower-class, gay ex-skinhead in love with an ambitious Pakistani businessman in Margaret Thatcher's London. When American critics saw him--he was then virtually unknown in the US--in two such different roles on the same day, many (including Roger Ebert of The Chicago Sun-Times and Vincent Canby of The New York Times) raved about the talent it must have taken him to play such vastly different characters.
- Describes himself as "a lifelong study of evasion".
- Was considered for the role of Jesus Christ in The Passion of the Christ (2004), but director Mel Gibson thought he looked "too European". The role instead went to Jim Caviezel.
- Hated being at Sevenoaks School so much that he ran away.
- Has dual citizenship between the United Kingdom and Ireland.
- All six times he has been nominated for the Best Actor Oscar, the film he was in was also nominated for Best Picture and Best Director.
- His performance as Christy Brown in My Left Foot (1989) is ranked #11 on Premiere magazine's 100 Greatest Performances of All Time (2006).
- Got to know his future wife Rebecca Miller while working on The Crucible (1996), the film version of her father Arthur Miller's play.
- According to Harvey Weinstein, Day-Lewis was taking time off to work as a cobbler in Florence, Italy when Weinstein, director Martin Scorsese and star Leonardo DiCaprio lured him into coming back to New York "on false pretenses" so they could persuade him to accept lead role in Gangs of New York (2002).
- Is one of 13 actors to have won the Academy Award, BAFTA Award, Critics' Choice Award, Golden Globe Award and SAG Award for the same performance (There Will Be Blood (2007) and Lincoln (2012)). The others in chronological order 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).
- His performance as Bill "The Butcher" Cutting in Gangs of New York (2002) is ranked #53 on Premiere magazine's 100 Greatest Performances of All Time (2006).
- While filming The Ballad of Jack and Rose (2005) on Prince Edward Island, Canada, he lived alone in a hut on the beach, away from his wife, director Rebecca Miller, and their children.
- Became a father for the first time at age 37 when his ex-girlfriend Isabelle Adjani gave birth to their son Gabriel-Kane Day Lewis on April 9, 1995.
- Received an honorary degree from the Juilliard School in Manhattan, New York City. (May 2013)
- He was the first of three consecutive British actors to win the Oscar for Best Actor in a leading role. Day-Lewis won for his performance in My Left Foot (1989), Jeremy Irons being next with his performance in Reversal of Fortune (1990) and Anthony Hopkins the third for his performance in The Silence of the Lambs (1991). Each of them coincidentally won with their first nomination at the Academy Awards.
- Late in the run of the 1989 production of "Hamlet" at the National Theatre in London, he reported that he had a strange sensation that he was talking to his father, who died of pancreatic cancer when Daniel was age 15. Unnerved, he walked off the stage and never returned. He still doesn't like to talk about it.
- His performance as Daniel Plainview in There Will Be Blood (2007) was listed as third in TotalFilm's "150 Greatest Movie Performances of All Time". (December 2009)
- Turned down the lead role in The English Patient (1996), which went to Ralph Fiennes.
- Dedicated his 2008 Oscar to his grandfather, film studio boss Michael Balcon, his poet father Cecil Day-Lewis (aka Cecil Day-Lewis), and his three sons Gabriel-Kane Day Lewis (born April 9, 1995), Ronan Cal Day-Lewis (born June 14, 1998) and Cashel Blake Day-Lewis (born May 2002).
- Was director Alex Cox's second choice for the role of Sid Vicious in Sid and Nancy (1986). The role went to Gary Oldman.
- Was in a relationship with Isabelle Adjani from 1989 to 1994; they had one son together, Gabriel-Kane Day Lewis.
- As of 2018, has appeared in eight films that were nominated for the Best Picture and Best Director Oscars: Gandhi (1982), A Room with a View (1985), 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 (1982) won in both categories. He was also nominated for Best Actor in the last six of these, winning for My Left Foot, There Will Be Blood and Lincoln.
- He starred in one musical film, Nine (2009), said in an interview that he doesn't normally rehearse for a film, but was forced to in this film.
- The longest he has gone without an Oscar nomination is 9 years, between In the Name of the Father (1993) and Gangs of New York (2002).
- Is the first actor to win an Oscar for playing a U.S. President, and the first to win for playing Abraham Lincoln. Only one other actor, Raymond Massey, has been Oscar-nominated for playing the role; despite turning in a critically acclaimed performance as Lincoln in Young Mr. Lincoln (1939), Henry Fonda was not nominated for his performance.
- Dedicated his 2013 Best Actor Oscar to his late mother, actress Jill Balcon.
- In Gangs of New York (2002) his character "The Butcher" throws a knife at a picture of President Abraham Lincoln, hitting him right between the eyes. Ten years later he starred in Steven Spielberg's Lincoln (2012), playing the president himself.
- He was awarded Knight Bachelor of the Order of the British Empire in the 2014 Queen's Birthday Honours List for his services to drama.
- Turned down a role in Terminator Salvation (2009).
- Became a father for the third time at age 45 when his wife Rebecca Miller gave birth to their son Cashel Blake Day-Lewis in May 2002.
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