Today’s Morning Man: Daniel Day-Lewis!

I remember going to see Phantom Thread in 2017 and thoroughly loving it and Daniel Day-Lewis’ Oscar-nominated performance. But I walked out of the Vista Theatre in Silver Lake that day feeling a bit sad because Day-Lewis had already announced he was retiring from movies.

But the actor, who turns 68 today, will be returning to the big screen after an eight-year hiatus in Anemone, a film that marks the directorial debut of his son, Ronan Day-Lewis.

This was not the great actor’s first break from movies. Following his performance in The Boxer in 1997, he retired from acting for three years and took up a new profession as an apprentice shoe-maker in Italy. He returned to acting in 2000.

His body of work is not plentiful, but it is just extraordinary. He is the first and so far only male actor to have won three Academy Awards for Best Actor (My Left Foot, There Will Be Blood, and Lincoln) and also earned nominations for In the Name of the Father, Gangs of New York, and Phantom Thread.

He first earned acclaim for his breakthrough performances in My Beautiful Laundrette (1985), A Room with a View (1985), and The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1988). His other films included The Last of the Mohicans, The Age of Innocence, The Crucible, The Ballad of Jack and Rose and Nine.

After supporting roles in Ghandi and The Bounty, he gave his first critically acclaimed performance playing a young gay English man in an interracial relationship with a Pakistani youth in the film My Beautiful Laundrette. I remember renting it on VHS and watching it three times before having to return it to the video store the next day.

So many good movies followed includingThe Last of the Mohicans, The Age of Innocence, The Crucible, The Boxer, The Ballad of Jack and Rose directed by his wife, Rebecca Miller, and the film adaptation. of the musical Nine.

I’ve seen all his films and if he makes any in the future, I’ll watch those too.

Here’s hoping!