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Day-Lewis is the finest proponent of method acting the UK has seen. Born in London in 1957, son of the English Poet Laureate Cecil Day-Lewis, he studied acting at the Bristol Old Vic School. After his debut film performance in Sunday Bloody Sunday in 1971, he returned to the stage before gaining international recognition for My Beautiful Laundrette in 1985. A true chameleon, Day-Lewis followed it with A Room With A View, in which he played the wonderfully priggish Cecil Vyse. He won a Best Actor Oscar for his realistic portrayal of the quadriplegic Irish artist Christy Brown in the 1989 film My Left Foot, and enjoyed box office success in Michael Mann's Last Of The Mohicans in 1992, before appearing in The Name Of The Father and The Crucible. After a long sabbatical as a shoe-maker, Day Lewis was persuaded by Martin Scorsese to return to the screen for Gangs Of New York, and was rewarded with an Oscar nomination.
