After Becoming One of Hollywood’s Most Acclaimed Actors, 'The Boxer' Star Daniel Day-Lewis Walked Away – Months Later, a Director Found Him in Italy Doing a Job No One Expected

In the late 1990s, the Hollywood star briefly disappeared from the film industry. What followed took him far from movie sets and into a workshop in Florence, where his next chapter unfolded largely out of the public eye.

Daniel Day-Lewis had already spent years proving how completely he could disappear into a character's life while shooting movies when, in the late 1990s, he effectively disappeared from the film industry himself.

By then, the British actor had built a career around performances that could look remarkably different from one film to the next. He had won an Academy Award for playing Irish writer and painter Christy Brown, who was born with cerebral palsy, in the 1989 film "My Left Foot."

He subsequently transformed himself into frontiersman Hawkeye for "The Last of the Mohicans" and earned another Oscar nomination as Gerry Conlon, one of the Guildford Four, in "In the Name of the Father." Then came "The Boxer."

Released in 1997 and directed by Jim Sheridan, the drama reunited Day-Lewis with the filmmaker behind "My Left Foot" and "In the Name of the Father." This time, he portrayed Danny Flynn, a boxer and former IRA member who returned to his Belfast neighborhood after spending 14 years in prison.

Rather than leaving with footwear and continuing with his life, however, he became increasingly interested in the process of making shoes.

Danny tried to rebuild his life by reopening a boxing gym while reconnecting with Maggie, played by Emily Watson, but his attempt at a fresh start unfolded amid the political divisions surrounding him.

It was another demanding role for Day-Lewis, yet what followed was not another transformation for the silver screen. Instead, he simply stopped making films.

The break eventually lasted around five years, taking the actor away from an industry in which he had become one of the most celebrated performers of his generation.

Day-Lewis moved with his wife and child from London to Florence, Italy, and the distance between his old and new lives became considerably greater than geography alone.

In Florence, he encountered master shoemaker Stefano Bemer. Reports suggest that Day-Lewis initially entered Bemer's workshop as a customer looking to buy shoes.

Rather than leaving with footwear and continuing with his life, however, he became increasingly interested in the process of making shoes. Before long, the Oscar winner was working in the shop himself.

The setting also placed him in a country with a long-established tradition of treating footwear as a specialized craft.

For at least ten months, Day-Lewis learned under Bemer, spending his time hammering, sewing, and developing the practical skills involved in producing handmade shoes.

He reportedly worked without pay for almost a year, approaching the apprenticeship as a student of the craft rather than as the internationally known actor he had been before arriving in Florence.

There was no film waiting at the end of it and no character whose occupation required months of research. His shoemaking was not another example of the preparation for which his acting career had become famous. Instead, it belonged to his life away from the screen.

Day-Lewis later indicated that he regarded that chapter as private and believed he was entitled to experience it without outside attention.

Even years afterward, the full details of his time away remained limited. It is therefore unclear exactly how much of his approximately five-year absence from filmmaking was spent making shoes, although his apprenticeship with Bemer lasted for months.

The setting also placed him in a country with a long-established tradition of treating footwear as a specialized craft. Italy's shoemaking industry has supported generations of craftspeople and technical training, with schools devoted specifically to footwear and leather goods.

However, life inside the workshop eventually collided with the career he had left behind.

One such institution, Arsutoria in Milan, traced its roots to an industry publication founded in 1922, while its school opened in 1927. Its name translates to "footwear art," reflecting an approach in which design was only part of the process.

Training also involved understanding materials, machinery, construction, and the manual techniques required to turn individual components into finished shoes.

Day-Lewis was not an Arsutoria student, but the culture surrounding that kind of training helps explain the world he entered in Florence. Under Bemer, he was not simply watching an experienced shoemaker work.

He was learning through the physical process itself, including the repetitive and precise tasks required to make footwear by hand. However, life inside the workshop eventually collided with the career he had left behind.

Martin Scorsese was preparing a large-scale historical drama about 19th-century New York and wanted the actor for one of its central roles. "Gangs of New York" would follow Amsterdam Vallon, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, as he returned to Manhattan's Five Points years after witnessing the death of his father.

The man audiences encountered as Bill the Butcher was returning from an absence during which his daily life had looked markedly different from the career that preceded it.

Waiting for Amsterdam was William "Bill the Butcher" Cutting, the Nativist gang leader responsible for that killing and the character Scorsese wanted Day-Lewis to play.

The story unfolded amid violent divisions between Nativists and Irish Catholic immigrants, with Amsterdam gradually entering Bill's inner circle while pursuing revenge. Its fictional conflict was set against a period of upheaval that culminated in the 1863 New York City draft riots.

Scorsese's offer gave Day-Lewis a reason to return to the profession he had left years earlier. According to reports, the director persuaded him to leave the Florence workshop, bringing his period as a shoemaker's apprentice to an end as the actor prepared to step in front of a movie camera again.

When "Gangs of New York" arrived in 2002, it was his first film since "The Boxer." The man audiences encountered as Bill the Butcher was returning from an absence during which his daily life had looked markedly different from the career that preceded it.

Between those two films, Day-Lewis had moved his family to Florence, entered Bemer's workshop, worked without pay, and spent months learning how to hammer and sew handmade footwear. He eventually resumed acting, but those years in Italy remained part of a life he largely kept to himself.