Daniel Day-Lewis Names the One Oscar-Winning Film Hollywood Wouldn't Make in 2025

Daniel Day-Lewis does not pop up often, but when he does, he says the quiet part out loud. At a recent London Film Festival Q&A, he was asked which of his Oscar-winning movies could not be made now. His answer was blunt.

The comment

Speaking with critic Mark Kermode during a festival Q&A (as relayed by Deadline), Day-Lewis pointed to the film that won him his first Oscar and said it would not fly today: My Left Foot. The short version: playing a man with cerebral palsy as a non-disabled actor was already a debate in the late 80s, and he knows that debate has only moved further since.

He said he prepared by spending time with young disabled people at a clinic in Dublin. They told him straight up that they did not think he should take the role. Day-Lewis pushed ahead anyway, arguing at the time that the story might only get made if he did it. He is not patting himself on the back for that logic now.

"It was a fairly flimsy justification for doing something that I just wanted to do."

It is a remarkably candid admission, and yes, it is about the very performance that won him that first Academy Award.

Why My Left Foot mattered

My Left Foot, directed by Jim Sheridan and adapted from Christy Brown's 1954 memoir, follows Brown, who had spastic quadriplegia and learned to write and paint using his left foot. Day-Lewis plays Brown; the cast also includes Brenda Fricker, Ray McAnally, Fiona Shaw, and Kirsten Sheridan.

The film was a major awards player. Day-Lewis won Best Actor and Fricker won Best Supporting Actress at the Oscars. It was also nominated for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay. If you somehow missed it: the story charts Brown's childhood breakthrough, his relationship with his fierce mother, and his path to becoming a painter, poet, and author. It is inspirational by design, and it was a big deal at the time.

Where Day-Lewis is now

He officially retired from acting after 2018's Phantom Thread. And yet, he just resurfaced with a new project he co-wrote with his son, Ronan Day-Lewis: Anemone, which he also stars in. That film is currently playing in United States theaters.

Quick refresher: the Day-Lewis Oscar scorecard

• Best Actor wins: 1990's My Left Foot; 2008's There Will Be Blood; 2013's Lincoln.
• Additional Best Actor nominations: 1994's In the Name of the Father; 2003's Gangs of New York; 2018's Phantom Thread.