This biography provides an intimate look at this very public celebrity, who commands salaries in the millions for his work, yet leads a nomadic life with no fixed home. A man of many masks, Day-Lewis is a shy, sensitive Garbo, a dark-souled Byronic outsider, a brooding, tortured Hamlet whose roles have alternately provided escape and imprisonment. His childhood began in the shadow of his brilliant father, renowned crime writer and poet laureate Cecil Day-Lewis, and his mother, Jill Balcon, actress and daughter of Sir Michael Balcon, head of Ealing Film Studios. From the intellectuals, artists, and film stars of the 1960s who remember him as the apple of his father's eye, through the many actors and directors who watched him rise through the theatrical ranks, to the glitterati of present-day Hollywood, where it seems everyone has fallen under his spell, his life has unfolded in three generations of the rich and famous. Based on extensive interviews with those who have known Daniel Day-Lewis, journalist Garry Jenkins explores the complex relationship he had with his famous father, how he was shaped by his strict boarding school education, and the elusive nature of his romantic involvements with such stars as Julia Roberts and Isabelle Adjani. Daniel Day-Lewis reveals the man behind the roles, the shy, vulnerable man behind the superstar status.
