Many actors are described as a "consummate professional". Tom Cruise, Harrison Ford, Clint Eastwood, Gene Hackman - these guys are utterly trustworthy, they never miss the mark, never miss a beat, they always deliver. But there's delivering and delivering. Some actors - and there have never been many - take that extra step, delve so far into the spirit of their characters, into the heart of the piece, that they can become a total pain to those around them. Brando was like that, Sean Penn still is. And then there's the modern-day ultimate - Daniel Day-Lewis, considered by many to be the most extreme, and consequently the finest actor of them all.

De Niro is famed for the weight he gained and lost for Raging Bull, but Day-Lewis matched that by buffing up into a he-man for Last Of The Mohicans, then losing all of it and more to play a cadaverous prisoner in In The Name Of The Father. And he went further. Who else would build a house to get into a role, as he did for The Crucible? Who else would spend months walking around New York swathed in 1870s clothing and reeking of cologne (The Age Of Innocence), and more months confined to a wheelchair (My Left Foot)?

o'd learn to speak Czech (The Unbearable Lightness Of Being) and become expert in butchery (Gang Of New York)? In terms of uncompromising preparation, in the ruthless priming of his imagination, Daniel Day-Lewis is unmatched.

He was born Daniel Michael Blake Day-Lewis on the 29th of April, 1957, into an illustrious family. His father, Cecil Day-Lewis was a writer and a poet of such distinction he'd serve as Poet Laureate between 1968 and his death in 1972. Also, writing as Nicholas Blake, he published some 20 detective novels, their hero, Nigel Strangeways being modelled on the poet WH Auden, one of Cecil's peers at Oxford. His mother, Jill Balcon, was an actress who'd appeared in such hit movies as Saraband For Dead Lovers, alongside Stewart Granger and Joan Greenwood. Much of Jill's early work was done for Ealing Studios, then at the height of its powers. Not in the least bit co-incidentally, Jill's father was Michael Balcon, head of Ealing Studios from 1937 to 1959.