Daniel Michael Blake Day-Lewis (born 29 April 1957) is an English

English people

The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...

 actor with both British

British nationality law

British nationality law is the law of the United Kingdom that concerns citizenship and other categories of British nationality. The law is complex because of the United Kingdom's former status as an imperial power.-History:...

 and Irish

Irish nationality law

Irish nationality law is the law of the Republic of Ireland governing citizenship. A person may be an Irish citizen through birth, descent, marriage to an Irish citizen or through naturalisation. Irish nationality law is currently contained in the provisions of the Irish Nationality and Citizenship...

 citizenship. His portrayals of Christy Brown

Christy Brown

Christy Brown was an Irish author, painter and poet who had cerebral palsy. He is most famous for his autobiography My Left Foot, which was later made into an Academy Award-winning film of the same name....

 in My Left Foot

My Left Foot (film)

My Left Foot: The Story of Christy Brown is a 1989 drama film directed by Jim Sheridan and starring Daniel Day-Lewis. It tells the true story of Christy Brown, an Irishman born with cerebral palsy, who could control only his left foot. Christy Brown grew up in a poor, working class family, and...

 (1989) and Daniel Plainview in There Will Be Blood

There Will Be Blood

There Will Be Blood is a 2007 drama film written, co-produced, and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson. The film is based on Upton Sinclair's 1927 novel Oil!. It tells the story of a silver miner-turned-oilman on a ruthless quest for wealth during Southern California's oil boom of the late 19th and...

 (2007) won Academy

Academy Award for Best Actor

Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actor who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry...

 and BAFTA Awards for Best Actor

BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role

Best Actor in a Leading Role is a British Academy Film award presented annually by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts to recognize an actor who has delivered an outstanding leading performance in a film.-Superlatives:...

, and Screen Actors Guild as well as Golden Globe Awards

Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Drama

The Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture - Drama was first awarded by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association as a separate category in 1951...

 for the latter. His role as Bill "The Butcher" Cutting

William Poole

William Poole , also known as Bill the Butcher, was a member of the New York City gang the Bowery Boys, a bare-knuckle boxer, and a leader of the Know Nothing political movement.-Early life:...

 in Gangs of New York

Gangs of New York

Gangs of New York is a 2002 historical film set in the mid-19th century in the Five Points district of New York City. It was directed by Martin Scorsese and written by Jay Cocks, Steven Zaillian, and Kenneth Lonergan. The film was inspired by Herbert Asbury's 1928 nonfiction book, The Gangs of New...

 (2002) earned him the BAFTA Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award.

Day-Lewis, who grew up in London, is the son of actress Jill Balcon

Jill Balcon

Jill Angela Henriette Balcon was an English film and radio actress. She made her film debut in Nicholas Nickleby , though she was best known for her stage, television, and radio work....

 and the Anglo-Irish

Anglo-Irish

Anglo-Irish was a term used primarily in the 19th and early 20th centuries to identify a privileged social class in Ireland, whose members were the descendants and successors of the Protestant Ascendancy, mostly belonging to the Church of Ireland, which was the established church of Ireland until...

 Poet Laureate

Poet Laureate

A poet laureate is a poet officially appointed by a government and is often expected to compose poems for state occasions and other government events...

, Cecil Day-Lewis

Cecil Day-Lewis

Cecil Day-Lewis CBE was an Irish poet and the Poet Laureate from 1968 until his death in 1972. He also wrote mystery stories under the pseudonym of Nicholas Blake...

.