Triple Oscar winner Daniel Day-Lewis, star of films including Gangs of New York, The Last of the Mohicans, and Lincoln, has announced his retirement from acting.
The movie star's agent released a statement saying Day-Lewis "will no longer work as an actor."
She explained that it was a "private decision" and that the actor felt "immensely grateful to all his collaborators and his public."
However, the agent announced that Day-Lewis will not give more details about it.
The 60-year-old performer, who has British and Irish citizenship, won best actor Oscars three times for his roles in My Left Foot, There Will Be Blood, and Lincoln.
Son of the poet Cecil Day-Lewis (1904-1972), considered one of the most important Anglo-Irish authors of the 20th century, Daniel made his film debut as a teenager in 1971, in the film Sunday Bloody Sunday.
He began to gain critical attention with supporting roles in My Beautiful Launderette, in which he played a working-class in an interracial relationship, and A Room With a View, a period film in which he plays an aristocrat.
His first starring role came with The Unbearable Lightness of Being, based on the novel by Milan Kundera.
Day-Lewis stands out for his method of acting preparation, which involves an exhaustive investigation of the subject he is addressing and a total immersion in the character he plays, often to the detriment of his health.
For example, for his role as Gerry Conlon, a man falsely imprisoned for an attack he did not commit, in In the Name of the Father, Day-Lewis lost 70 pounds, spent lenga thy time in solitary confinement, and demanded that the film crew throw him buckets of ice water and insulted him.
For The Last of the Mohicans, he spent months in a wild area, learned to hunt and butcher animals with a knife, and build a canoe with hand tools.
He received his first Best Actor Oscar in 1990 for his portrayal of Christy Brown, an Irish artist, and writer with cerebral palsy, in My Left Foot.
He later starred in The Last of the Mohicans (1992), In the Name of the Father (1993,) and Gangs of New York (2002), the latter directed by Martin Scorsese.
His second Oscar came in 2008, for the role of oilman Daniel Plainview in There Will Be Blood, before he picked up his record third for his portrayal of US President Abraham Lincoln in 2013.
In 2014 he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II.
On that occasion, he declared that he was "completely surprised and equally delighted" to receive the honor.
Despite his announced retirement, he will star in one last film: Phantom Thread, directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, about the world of London fashion in the 1950s.
