I’ve read somewhere he prefers to be considered Irish, even though he’s got an English accent, was born and lived in the south of England, and went to an English boarding school.
I just watched his Oscar speech, it’s the first time I’ve heard him outside of a film role, and I always considered him Irish (Mainly because of his role in the film: In the name of the father)
I know he holds dual citizenship, I know his father was Anglo-Irish, but around a quarter of the UK population has that distinction of having an Irish relative, and they’re British. Is he being a plastic Paddy?
Anyway, this is Daniel Day Lewis. He spoke with an English accent because he chose to speak with an English accent. Asking what his “real” accent is is a nonsensical question.
I have met a person who was born in Aberdeen by a Scottish mother and lived there the first couple of months of his life before his parents moved to Surrey. When I asked him why he, with that background and a Welsh forename, regarded himself Scottish he added that he also had a very Jewish surname and agreed that it was a silly notion.
Oh, the natural accent that you were born speaking? Most of us learn to talk after we’re born. It’s cultural–that is, learned behavior. Do you still sound as you did when you were 2? Or did your language stop developing in first grade? Later, perhaps. As kids we’re pretty fluid–but even many adults notice their accent changing if they move.
What about John Berrowman–born in Scotland but raised mostly in the US. He usually uses a somewhat American accent but uses Scottish English with his family.
Actors of DDL’s caliber are always “on”. That may have been his “real” accent last night, or it could be an accent he decided to wear, like a tux. We have no way of knowing.
Wiki says he was born in London, grew up in Greenwich (as in the Meridian), went to Sevenoaks School and then Bedales, went on to the National Youth Theatre and then the Bristol Old Vic.
It appears that his claim on Irishness arises from the fact that his father Cecil Day-Lewis was of Anglo-Irish stock (i.e., descended from English people settled in Ireland for some generations) and born in Ireland (when it was still all part of the United Kingdom). However, Cecil lived in ENgland from the age of two, and became the British Poet Laureate, so his own claim on Irishness is tenuous, his son’s considerably more so.
I wonder if Daniel’s taking of Irish citizenship has something to do with the fact that Irish citizens who make their living as ‘artists’, and are resident in Ireland, do not have to pay income tax. (Whether or not he takes advantage of this now, he may have plans to.)
This is no longer the case. All income after your first €40,000 is taxed. It seems actors aren’t included in the exemption anyway so it wouldn’t be an issue for Day-Lewis unless he wrote a play or book etc.
They don’t refer to him as Irish on Irish television. They just say “Wicklow-man, Daniel Day-Lewis”. He lives in Co. Wicklow. The fact that he holds dual citizenship suggests to me he feels some special affinity for Ireland. There’s no practical reason for him to have Irish citizenship that I know of. There are plenty of Irish people who think he’s Irish as he played Gerry Conlon in In The Name Of The Father and writer Christy Brown in My Left Foot. Two very popular films about Irish people.
She doesn’t even use her natural name (Amanda Lee Rogers). I’m not sure if she is even Italian, or chose it because it was “exotic.”
Yeah, his dad is Anglo-Irish and considered himself such. This does not mean that he had both ancestries (although probably did) but that his family was from a specific social class of Anglican landed gentry. While the Presbyterians in Northern Ireland usually consider(ed) themselves British/not Irish, the Anglo-Irish often may consider themselves Irish, or both.