A Filmmaker's Guide to the Best Performances: Sir Daniel Day-Lewis

Daniel Day-Lewis was named by TIME Magazine as the "World's Greatest Actor" and by many accounts of different sources he has been named as the greatest actor to ever live. With his intense method acting style, Daniel Day-Lewis may not have done a lot of movies, but he's never done a bad one (if we exclude Nine. I'm joking, he was just the only good performance in the film). However, the toll it took on his health was pretty extreme and with his final bow in "Phantom Thread" (2016), Daniel Day-Lewis went to his final Oscars Show as a nominee for Best Actor and then he retired, vanishing pretty much without a trace.

Background

Born in Kensington, London - he is the son of the Poet Laureate Cecil Day-Lewis (hands up if you had to study him at school). His mother is the actress Jill Balcon. He attended school foremost in South London and was bullied for being posh. He ended up trying his best to blend in and becoming a petty criminal from a young age. In 1968, he was transferred to a boarding school when his parents found his behaviour was getting out of hand. He was then transferred again to another boarding school after he found a complete disdain for being at school.

In 1972, Daniel Day-Lewis lived in Lemmons for a few weeks at the home of Kingsley Amis - that is where Cecil Day-Lewis would die of cancer in that year. Daniel Day-Lewis was only 15 when his father died. By 1975, Daniel Day-Lewis's unruly attitude was gone and, at the age of 18 - he needed to make a career choice. He wanted to be a cabinet maker but was turned down because of a lack of experience so, he went to become an actor instead. He moved to work at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre. People there would describe the teenage Day-Lewis as 'quiet and polite'.

It was after this that Day-Lewis would join the RSC to play Romeo in their production of "Romeo and Juliet" - he would play Hamlet in their production of the play of the same name. But he would ultimately run off the stage sobbing during the production of Hamlet, stating that he was so into the role that he ended up seeing the ghost of Cecil Day-Lewis, his father. This is pretty much where Day-Lewis cut off his theatre career.

He went on to be in a number of films, three of which are included on the 100 greatest BFI films of the 20th Century. He is the only man to hold three Best Actor Academy Awards and he is yet to be one of the most decorated actors in cinema history.

Throughout his career, Day-Lewis was compared to the likes of Laurence Olivier and Marlon Brando - surpassing them both by the end of the 2010s when he starred in what would be called "The Greatest Film of the 21st Century" - Paul Thomas Anderson's "There Will be Blood" (2007).

As an amazing actor, Daniel Day-Lewis has developed a workable style of method acting. He is not only brilliant at this but he is also absolutely gorgeous and has aged so well. An incredibly handsome man with an amazing aura about him - he has successfully taken my breath away.

So here we go, this was particularly hard to do, but I managed it. These are all just opinions so please don't hate me if you don't see your favourite at number one. Here are the ten greatest film performances by Daniel Day-Lewis...

The Ten Greatest Film Performances by Daniel Day-Lewis

10. Newland Archer in The Age of Innocence (1993)

9. John Proctor in The Crucible (1996)

8. Hawkeye in The Last of the Mohicans (1992)

7. Danny Flynn in The Boxer (1997)

6. Gerry Conlon in In The Name of the Father (1993)

5. Reynolds Woodcock in Phantom Thread (2016)

4. William Cutting in Gangs of New York (2002)

3. Abraham Lincoln in Lincoln (2012)

2. Christy Brown in My Left Foot (1989)

1. Daniel Plainview in There Will Be Blood (2007)

So those are the ten greatest performances by Daniel Day-Lewis in film, I know he's been in a number of TV Shows that have also been pretty good as well and theatre productions. I am not going to include that because when I start talking about this guy, I actually won't stop. Consider yourself lucky that I managed to keep the article this short. I would've never been able to do that before. I actively tried to keep this article nice and concise so you can flick through it, do you have any idea how hard it is to compress Daniel Day-Lewis's career into 800 words? Exactly. Happy Birthday Mr. Day-Lewis, may you be contented with knowing that you are one of if not the greatest actor in human history.

He is absolutely breathtaking.