The announcement sent shockwaves through Hollywood, where Day-Lewis is revered as possibly the finest actor of his time…
NEW YORK (AP) — Daniel Day-Lewis, one of the most widely respected actors of his generation and a three-time Oscar-winner, says he’s retiring from acting.
The 60-year-old actor announced Tuesday that he has shot his last film and performed in his last play. That makes Paul Thomas Anderson’s already filmed « Phantom Thread, » due out in December, his final film.
« Daniel Day-Lewis will no longer be working as an actor, » his representative Leslee Dart said in a statement. « 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. »
The announcement sent shockwaves through Hollywood, where Day-Lewis is revered as possibly the finest actor of his time. But Day-Lewis has also long been an exceptionally deliberate performer who often spends years preparing for a role, crafting his characters with an uncommon, methodical completeness.
« I don’t dismember a character into its component parts and then kind of bolt it all together, and off you go, » Day-Lewis told the AP in 2012, discussing Steven Spielberg’s « Lincoln. » »I tend to try and allow things to happen slowly, over a long period of time. As I feel I’m growing into a sense of that life, if I’m lucky, I begin to hear a voice. »
He has stepped away from film before. In the late 1990s, he famously apprenticed as a shoemaker in Florence, Italy — a period he called « semi-retirement. » »Phantom Thread, » which Focus Features will release Dec. 25, is his first film in five years, following « Lincoln. »
A five-time Academy Award nominee, Day-Lewis is the only one to ever win best actor three times. He earned Oscars for « My Left Foot, » »Lincoln » and « There Will Be Blood. »
Day-Lewis, who is married to writer-director Rebecca Miller with three children, broke through with 1985’s « My Beautiful Laundrette, » by Stephen Frears. His films since then have included « The Last of the Mohicans, » »The Age of Innocence, » »In the Name of the Father » and « Gangs of New York. »
His last play was in 1989, a National Theatre production of « Hamlet, » in London. Day-Lewis infamously walked out in the middle of a performance, and never returned to the stage again.
