A biography for Daniel Day-Lewishasn’t been written yet.
“I suppose I have a highly developed capacity for self-delusion, so it's no problem for me to believe that I'm somebody else!”
“When I did make the decision to focus on acting, I think my mother was just relieved for me that I had finally started to focus.”
“I broke things to get attention.”
“Everybody has to know for themselves what they're capable of.”
“I suppose it's a very highly developed form of denial, but some part of me completely denies that I'm a performer.”
“I never retreat from films, as it were, I simply indulge in other interests, that's all.”
“I'm a little bit perverse, and I just hate doing the thing that's the most obvious.”
“I'm a warrior when it comes to pursuing roles.”
“I've got a serious-looking head.”
“It didn't occur to me that it was possible to breathe life into Abraham Lincoln.”
“As a member of the audience I don't like it that I can't see what's going on in the eyes and in the face and in the most subtle responses of a performer when I'm more than a few rows back. I find it very frustrating.”
“How can you be a recluse in a house full of children, even if you had the inclination to be, which I don't?”
“The last time I was on a small set would've been probably My Left Foot.”
“A lot of guys in jail tattoo their hands.”
“Being at the centre of a film is a burden one takes on with innocence the first time. Thereafter, you take it on with trepidation.”
“The West has always been the epicentre of possibility. One of the ways we forge against mortality is to head west. It's to do with catching the sun before it slips behind the horizon.”
“I didn't like the idea of being foolish, but I learned pretty soon that it was essential to fail and be foolish.”
“God knows, I haven't always been successful.”
“Very often there's this misapprehension about actors being people that need to display themselves, to reveal themselves in public.”
“There must've been some part of me that wanted to make my mark. But there was never a defining moment.”