Day-Lewis plays down his chances of another Oscar win

OSCAR nominee Daniel Day-Lewis isn’t confident about his chances of picking up the Best Actor award at the upcoming Academy Awards.

Despite already clinching several prizes in the industry’s most prestigious ceremonies he insisted competition was tough for the Oscars.

Day-Lewis is tipped to take his second Oscar after picking up a Bafta, Golden Globe and Screen Actors’ Guild Award for his lead role in There Will Be Blood.

But the British-born actor — who lives in Co Wicklow — dismissed a growing consensus that he was sure to get the top prize next weekend.

“I suppose it’s because it seems to me there are very fine films made this year with wonderful performances in them,” he said. “It’s a good year.”

George Clooney, Johnny Depp, Tommy Lee Jones and Viggo Mortensen are also nominated for the category.

Day-Lewis, a revered method actor, is nominated for his portrayal of ruthless oil baron Daniel Plainview during California’s turn-of-the-century petroleum boom.

Speaking ahead of a gala screening of the film at the Dublin International Film Festival, the fiercely private 50-year-old said he had no immediate plans for the future.

And despite media suggestions of a reclusive life — with wife Rebecca Miller, daughter of playwright Arthur Miller, and their two sons — he insisted he would not be disappearing for years.

“I don’t disappear. You think I disappear. I just go about my business,” he said.

In 1990 he won the best actor Oscar for his performance as Irish writer Christy Brown in My Left Foot.

Meanwhile, Oscar winner Charlize Theron will ditch the designer dress and red carpet of the Oscars in favour of watching this year’s ceremony at home in her pyjamas, she revealed.

The actress said she’d rather watch it on television on the couch with her Irish director and actor boyfriend Stuart Townsend.

Theron was speaking after the screening of Townsend’s latest film Battle in Seattle at the Dublin International Film Festival.

“I don’t think you go to those kind of award shows unless you are nominated,” she declared.

“I think it’s a special thing if you get a nomination, or your film does. Then you go.”

Theron, best known for her Academy Award-winning portrayal of a lesbian prostitute-turned serial killer in Monster, also ruled out any imminent marriage to her long-time boyfriend.

“I have no plans on getting married,” she said.

Townsend wrote and directed Battle in Seattle, which tells the story of the World Trade Organisation protests in the US city in 1999.