Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
The Schmooze

Daniel Day-Lewis Announces Retirement From Acting

Daniel Day-Lewis, the Oscar-winning actor who most recently appeared as the title character in Steven Spielberg’s 2012 film “Lincoln,” is retiring.

In a statement to Variety, Day-Lewis’s spokeswoman Leslee Dart wrote, “Daniel Day-Lewis will no longer be working as an actor. He is immensely grateful to all of his collaborators and audiences over the many years. This is a private decision and neither he nor his representatives will make any further comment on this subject.”

She did not share a reason for Day-Lewis’s decision.

Day-Lewis, 60, was born to Cecil Day-Lewis, who would become the United Kingdom’s poet laureate, and Jill Balcon, an actress who was the daughter of Polish and Latvian Jewish immigrants. He is married to Rebecca Miller, the daughter of playwright Arthur Miller. The couple met when Day-Lewis starred as John Proctor in the 1996 film adaptation of Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible.”

Day-Lewis’s last film, “Phantom Thread,” will be released this coming December. The film, set in the fashion world of 1950s London, is being directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, who previously directed Day-Lewis in his Oscar-winning performance in “There Will Be Blood.”

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.