In a highly surprising news out of Hollywood, acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis has announced his retirement from the field. After earning 3 Oscars during three different decades of his 35-year career, he released the news via a short statement through his publicist today.
The actor's final movie, an as-yet-untitled drama reuniting him with his "There Will Be Blood" director, Paul Thomas Anderson, will be released this Christmas Day.
Previously retired to work as a cobbler
Without giving any reason for Day-Lewis' retirement, the actor's representative, Leslee Dart, confirmed to Variety that her client "will no longer be working as an actor." She went on to explain that the matter was "a private decision and neither he nor his representatives will make any further comment on this subject." There has been no official report as to what the actor plans to do now that he will not be acting.
Day-Lewis had previously retired from acting, having spent several years in the late 1990s working as an apprentice cobbler for celebrity shoemaker Stefano Bemer in Florence, Italy. Bemer has made shoes for actor Andy Garcia and legendary singer Julio Iglesias. It has been reported that he was working at that trade when he was approached by Martin Scorsese to star in 2002's "The Gangs of New York."
Actor has appeared in less than two dozen films
Although his professional career began in 1982 with a small role in Richard Attenborough's "Gandhi," Day-Lewis appeared in only 20 Movies and about a dozen theatrical productions on London's West End before announcing his retirement. Apparently, the particular choices made throughout his career paid off highly as he was awarded 3 Oscars, 3 Golden Globe awards, and 4 Film BAFTAs.
To date, his remains the only actor to receive 3 Academy Awards, (for "My Left Foot," "There Will Be Blood," and "Lincoln").
Known as a shape-shifting method actor, Day-Lewis often went to great lengths in order to prepare for the characters he played; He confined himself to a wheelchair for several months before playing the role of the cerebral palsy-afflicted writer and artist Christy Brown in “My Left Foot.”
During the filming of "Gangs of New York," he was diagnosed with severe pneumonia after refusing to wear an insulated jacket from outside the movie's historic period and denying himself modern treatment during the initial stages of his illness.
While being directed by his wife, Rebecca Miller, for 2005's "The Ballad of Jack and Rose," the actor chose to live away from his family to maintain what he felt was "appropriate isolation" for the character he was playing.
Day-Lewis currently lives in rural Ireland with his wife and their sons. Miller is a director, screenwriter, producer, and actress. She was most recently seen in Noah Baumbach's acclaimed "The Meyorwitz Stories" at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival, after a 13-year hiatus from acting.
