Daniel Day Lewis spoke for the first time about his decision to end his retirement in eight years to star in the new film “Anemonet,” directed by his son Ronan. Day-Lewis, a three-time Oscar winner (“My Left Leg”, “Blood”, “Lincoln”), co-written the “Anemone” script with Ronan based on original ideas they came up with together.
In June 2017, Day-Lewis announced his retirement from acting after creating Paul Thomas Anderson’s “Phantom Thread.” At the time, the actor spokesman announced: “Daniel Day Lewis does not work as an actor. He is extremely grateful to all his collaborators and audiences over the years. This is a private decision and neither he nor his representative will further comment on the subject.”
The announcement of his retirement was not Day-Lewis’ first. He had a long absence from his profession in 1997, after appearing in Jim Sheridan’s “Boxer.” He returned to 2002 to play Bill the Butcher in Martin Scorsese’s Gang of New York.
Speaking to Rolling Stone ahead of the world premiere of “Anemone” at the New York Film Festival, Day Lewis said, “I knew Ronan would continue to make the film, so I walked away from it, and then I said, “If we could do it together, it might not be important, so if we thought it was necessary, I thought it was nice, and I thought it would be nice if we could leave it, so he came out of retirement. Production?'”
“Anemone” stars Day Lewis as a recluse living in the forests of northern England. His life is defeated when his brother (Shawn Bean) appears and forces him to confront his mysterious past. Samuel Bottomley, Safia Oakley Green and Samantha Morton close out the cast.
Day-Lewis admitted that he was considering whether to appear in “Anemone” or whether to write it and hand over one of his roles to another actor, “there is a certain reservation about returning to the public world again.” Then his son Ronan said, “I made it pretty clear that if I hadn’t done it, he wouldn’t have done it.”
“It was just a low level of fear and () anxiety about re-activating with the filmmaking business,” Day Lewis said of his nerves about coming out of retirement. “Work has always been something I loved. I never stopped loving my work. But I never ended it from the day I started old, to the day I finished, to the day I ended up with it. That means I knew it well. Thread’) I began to feel very strongly that I probably shouldn’t have been away from it because I hadn’t offered anything else.”
“But now I look back at it — I would certainly have done well to keep my mouth closed,” he continued. “It’s epic to talk about such a spectacular gibberish. I wasn’t going to retire. I just stopped that particular kind of job so I can really do other jobs. RO, that furnace just lightened up.
“Anemone” will open in select theaters on October 3rd, before a nationwide expansion from the focus feature on October 10th. Visit the Rolling Stone website and read the entire Day-Lewis interview.
