Lots of people tend to think of Daniel Day-Lewis as one of the best actors of his generation, and they have some pretty good reasons for calling him that. He recently retired, but that doesn’t mean that he did not spend a lot of time adding some amazing work to his extensive and impressive resumé.
While his fans do know a great deal about his work, there are still many details of his private life that are not known by many people. He is very mysterious, so his fans probably want to know lots of things about him. Here are some facts about his personal life that most people don't know.
10 Acting Runs In His Family
Daniel is a very talented actor, but he is not the only member of his family that has been involved in the world of filmmaking. The actor’s mother, Jill Balcon, was also someone who enjoyed acting, so perhaps that is something he got from her.
But one other important thing that his fans might have some interest in is the fact he and his mother were also not the only ones in the family who liked working in that field. One of Daniel’s grandfathers was Sir Michael Balcon, someone who had an important role in the film industry long ago.
9 He Learned A Foreign Language For One Role
Learning a foreign language is hard, but it is something that Daniel chose to do when he was working on one of his many films. The actor is known for going the extra mile when it comes to the movies he works on, and that’s what was going on in this case.
He was starring in the movie The Unbearable Lightness Of Being, along side Juliette Binoche, and he decided to learn Czech to prepare for his part. The film took eight months to shoot, and the actor never broke character the entire time. Daniel is known for doing things like that.
8 Daniel Moved To Ireland In The 1990’s
The actor made a big move to Ireland after he started to see a bit of success from his hard work. While Daniel was originally born in London, he decided that he would prefer to live in Ireland. That is certainly a beautiful place, so it is really easy to see why he was so drawn to it. The famous actor became a citizen of Ireland officially in the early 1990’s.
Since he was born in London and moved to Ireland, Daniel holds citizenship in both places, which is pretty interesting. But it seems that he also has an apartment in New York as well.
7 He Was Offered A Part In The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy
Fans of the Lord Of The Rings trilogy might be very surprised to find out that Daniel nearly ended up with a very big role in those movies. Peter Jackson gave him many chances to play the role of Aragorn in those movies, but it seems that he turned the role down each time.
It is really difficult to imagine the role being played by anyone other than the actor who eventually took on the role, but it is also really interesting to think about what it would have been like to see Daniel take on the role as well. Daniel has done a phenomenal job in every film he has been a part of.
6 Daniel’s Sister Is A Chef
A lot of creativity flows through the members of the Day-Lewis family, and Daniel’s sister chose to use her creativity as a chef. Her name is Tamasin, and she has done some truly impressive things with her culinary talent over the years.
The chef is also very private, just like her brother. “It has been drilled into my family that you don’t talk to journalists, you don’t give anything away. You don’t talk about your father. You don’t talk about your brother. You don’t talk about your grandfather. You just plough your furrow,” said Tamasin. This family is notorious for keeping to themselves.
5 He Has A Connection To Arthur Miller
Daniel Day-Lewis is married to Rebecca Miller, who is the daughter of Arthur Miller. That name probably sounds familiar to those who love plays, since Arthur Miller was a pretty famous playwright a long time ago. Another thing that made him famous was the fact that he was once married to Marilyn Monroe.
It seems that his literary talent is shared by his daughter. Rebecca is also a pretty good writer, but she is an actress as well. The two met when Daniel was preparing to work on the film The Crucible. Another interesting fact is that Rebecca wrote the novel Jacob’s Folly.
4 The Actor’s Father Was A Poet
Daniel’s mother was not the only one of his parents with some strong creative skills, since his father was a well-known poet. The actor’s father was Cecil Day-Lewis, and Cecil was a pretty important English poet.
There are lots of interesting facts to know about this man. One of those facts is that he taught school for a while. Another intriguing tidbit about this person is that he also wrote things that were not poems.
Cecil created a few different novels as well, which show that he must have had some very diverse writing skills. Not every writer can write both poetry and fictional novels.
3 He Isn’t Always A Cool Person
Daniel is a talented celebrity, but he has definitely done some questionable things, especially when it comes to the people he has dated. When he dated a former girlfriend, he stopped seeing after finding out that she was pregnant. That sounds bad enough, but it gets worse.
He did not even end their relationship properly. They simply never saw each other anymore after that moment. He later sent her a fax to inform her that he was getting married, but when she gave him a call to congratulate him, it turned out that the woman who answered the call was a bit surprised as well, since she knew nothing about him getting married. Daniel has never denied these allegations. He only claimed that they made him feel pretty bad.
2 Daniel Spent Some Time Locked Up
Daniel once spent some time behind bars, but that is not because he did anything wrong. The actor was simply preparing for a role, so he spent a couple of nights in a prison cell. That sounds pretty unenjoyable, but it gets even more intense than that.
During his short stay in prison, the actor also went without any food or water. Apparently, some of the other people who worked on this particular film with him were also there, and they tossed water at him. They also said some things to him that were not very nice, which was a part of the whole experience. The actor was also interrogated for a very long time after that.
1 There May Have Been A Time During Which He Did Not Bathe For A Bit
Daniel has done a lot for various film roles, and giving up bathing might be one of those things. It does not seem that he gave up bathing forever (as far as the public knows), but it looks like there is a rumor that the the actor did give it up for at least a little bit of time.
It has been said that he refrained from taking any baths when he was working on the film The Crucible. When one considers all of the other things this method actor has done for a part, this does not seem all that strange. The spot he stayed in during that time did not have any running water or electricity at the time, so that makes it a bit more believable.
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