'I'm entirely amazed and utterly delighted': Three-time Oscar winner Daniel Day-Lewis to receive a knighthood

  • Daniel Day-Lewis, who has won three Oscars, to receive a knighthood
  • Actor, 55, said he was 'amazed and utterly delighted in equal measure'
  • Star, who grew up in London, nominated five times for the best actor Oscar

By Daily Mail Reporter

Published: 17:51 EST, 13 June 2014 | Updated: 01:32 EST, 14 June 2014


Daniel Day-Lewis said he was 'entirely amazed' to receive a knighthood in the Queen's Birthday Honours.

The star is not short of honours - his 2012 Oscar win for Lincoln made him the first man to win three best actor statuettes.

He said: 'I'm entirely amazed and utterly delighted in equal measure.'

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Accolade: Three-time Oscar winner Daniel Day Lewis is to receive a knighthood

Accolade: Three-time Oscar winner Daniel Day Lewis is to receive a knighthood

Day-Lewis, the son of former poet laureate Cecil Day-Lewis and actress Jill Balcon, has been nominated five times for the best actor Oscar and has a reputation for taking his method acting very seriously.

He is said to have lived in a tent on a deserted Texan oil field during the making of There Will Be Blood.

To play Guildford Four member Gerry Conlon in the film In The Name Of The Father, he spent two days in a prison cell without food and water.

 

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While shooting The Ballad Of Jack And Rose, he chose to live apart from his wife Rebecca Miller and their two children - because she was the director and he was playing a conflicted family man.

And he chose to stay in character as fearsome Bill 'The Butcher' Cutting even when the cameras stopped rolling on the Martin Scorsese epic Gangs Of New York.

Star: The actor, who grew up in south London, won the Best Actor Oscar for his role in Lincoln, pictured

Star: The actor, who grew up in south London, won the Best Actor Oscar for his role in Lincoln, pictured

Award: He also won Best Actor for portraying Christy Brown in My Left Foot, pictured

Award: He also won Best Actor for portraying Christy Brown in My Left Foot, pictured

'He'd be sharpening his knives at lunchtime just like you'd expect Bill the Butcher to do. He's just really intense,' recalled co-star Leonardo DiCaprio.

But he is also not afraid to poke fun at himself. Accepting his best actor Bafta for Lincoln, he told the audience: 'Just on the chance I might one day have to speak on an evening such as this I've actually stayed in character as myself for the last 55 years and had a various selection of Bafta sets downscaled, dating from the late fifties, placed in every single room of every house I've ever lived in and every time I rise from a chair it spontaneously unleashes a soundtrack of thunderous applause, with a few boos and some drunken hecklers.'

Away from Hollywood, stories of his eccentricities abound.

In 1997, he turned his back on the film industry and became a shoemaker in Florence, where he remained until Scorsese lured him back into films.

Method actor: Day-Lewis is known for taking his roles very seriously - and for his role as Bill the Butcher in The Gangs of New York, pictured, he would sharpen his knives at lunchtime

Method actor: Day-Lewis is known for taking his roles very seriously - and for his role as Bill the Butcher in The Gangs of New York, pictured, he would sharpen his knives at lunchtime

The 55-year-old, who grew up in south London and has dual British and Irish citizenship, is fiercely private and lives in Co Wicklow, Ireland, with Miller - daughter of playwright Arthur Miller - and their sons.

He also has a son from a previous relationship with French actress Isabelle Adjani.

He is often spoken of as a recluse but has told an interviewer he needs peace and quiet to prepare for acting jobs.

'I couldn't work or get ready for a piece of work from a city base, from city life. I need deep, deep quiet and a landscape too that I can be absorbed into.

'So much of the work is in the process of aimless rumination in which things may or may not take seed,' he explained.

His breakthrough role was in 1985 British drama My Beautiful Laundrette and other acclaimed performances include The Last Of The Mohicans, The Age Of Innocence and A Room With A View.


 

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It is great that Sir Daniel Day-Lewis was Knighted, but I must inject that it is almost painful that Alfred Hawthorne Hill was never been Knighted and for some odd reason will NOT have the honor of Knighthood bestowed posthumously.

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Why the gong for Jolie? Starstruck much?

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I'm entirely amazed as well.

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I am still LIVID that an English actor played Abraham Lincoln!

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There is no doubt in my mind that of all the British actors currently active, Sir Daniel Day-Lewis is the most deserving to be in the ranks with Sir Ian Murray McKellen and Sir Patrick Stewart OBE.

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what a FARCE. a knight of the realm had to win their spurs what apart from entertaining us for an hour what else his acclaim to fame. he choose to be a irish national is that where he pays his taxes? if that is so , he gave up his birthland so how can he be a KNIGHT OF THE REALM

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Has to be Morrissey.

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a Knighthood for what?

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can I have one too for working 45 years and paying my taxes all my working life?why do only celebs get them they are rewarded enough with their outlandish pay

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he is entirely overrated & utterly up his own ar$e in equal measure

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