Daniel Day-Lewis

Unpredictable and famously reserved about his private life to the point of being secluded, actor Daniel Day-Lewis proved time and again his considerable onscreen talents in roles befitting the highly complex actor. Though often compared to fellow Brit Laurence Olivier, Day-Lewis instead took his cues from the raw, aggressive loners of 1970s American cinema, namely Marlon Brando and Robert De Niro, in adapting a Method-style of acting. After gaining notice with his performances in "My Beautiful Laundrette" (1985) and "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" (1988), Day-Lewis developed a reputation for fully delving into his characters, often to the point of making their experiences his own - like staying in a wheelchair all day and being spoon fed like the real-life Christy Brown, the Irish writer and painter with cerebral palsy, in "My Left Foot" (1989). While he may have learned to track animals to play a frontiersman in "Last of the Mohicans" (1993) and lived in a prison cell to play an accused IRA bomber in "In the Name of the Father" (1993), it was highly doubtful Day-Lewis turned into a savage murderer for his Oscar-nominated turn as Bill the Butcher in "Gangs of New York" (2002). Nonetheless, Day-Lewis' focus on craft was palpable onscreen - again evidenced in his acclaimed leading performance in "Lincoln" (2012) - earning him yet another Oscar and the respect of all actors for being one of the most deeply committed thespians of his generation. Famously conflicted about life as a thespian, Day-Lewis claimed that "Phantom Thread" (2017), his second film with "There Will Be Blood" (2007) director Paul Thomas Anderson, would be his last movie.