Daniel Day-Lewis the second child of poet Cecil Day-Lewis (1904–1972) and his second wife, actress Jill Balcon (1925–2009). His older sister, Tamasin Day-Lewis (born 1953), is a television chef and food critic. His father, who was born in the Irish town of Ballintubbert, County Laois, was of Protestant Anglo-Irish descent, lived in England from the age of two, and was appointed Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom. Daniel's mother was Jewish; her ancestors were immigrants to England in the late 19th century, from Latvia and Poland. Day-Lewis' maternal grandfather, Sir Michael Balcon, became the head of Ealing Studios, helping develop the new
Daniel Day-Lewis three Day-Lewis films to appear in the BFI's 100 greatest British films of the 20th century, ranking 50th. Day-Lewis gained further public notice that year with "A Room with a View" (1985), based on the novel by E. M. Forster. Set in the Edwardian period of turn-of-the-20th-century England, he portrayed an entirely different character: Cecil Vyse, the proper upper-class fiancé of the main character. In 1987, Day-Lewis assumed leading man status by starring in Philip Kaufman's adaptation of Milan Kundera's "The Unbearable Lightness of Being", in which he portrayed a Czech surgeon whose hyperactive sex life is thrown into disarray