Daniel Day-Lewis Officially Ends Acting Retirement To Work On Son's Film
Seven years after Daniel Day-Lewis announced he was finished with acting for good, the Oscar winner will star in his son Ronan Day-Lewis’ directorial debut, “Anemone.”
Film studios Focus Features and Plan B, who are shepherding the project’s production and distribution, confirmed the news Tuesday to The Associated Press.
“We could not be more excited to partner with a brilliant visual artist in Ronan Day-Lewis on his first feature film alongside Daniel Day-Lewis as his creative collaborator,” Focus chairperson Peter Kujawski said in a news release. “They have written a truly exceptional script.”
In addition to co-writing the script for “Anemone” with his son, Daniel Day-Lewis will star opposite “Game of Thrones” alum Sean Bean and “The Whale” actor Samantha Morton.
According to a synopsis, the film “explores relationships between fathers, sons, brothers, and familial bonds.”
Ronan Day-Lewis, 26, has primarily spent his adult years as a painter.
His father has won three Oscars — for “My Left Foot” (1989), “There Will Be Blood” (2007) and “Lincoln” (2012).
Daniel Day-Lewis’s return to cinemas is sure to please fans, who spotted him and Bean riding a motorcycle through Manchester, England, on Tuesday, multiple news outlets reported.
Daniel Day-Lewis told W Magazine in 2017 that he intended to retire.
“I need to believe in the value of what I’m doing,” he said, adding that a “great sadness” overcame him while he was working on “Phantom Thread.” “The work can seem vital. Irresistible, even. And if an audience believes it, that should be good enough for me. But, lately, it isn’t.”
The actor announced his retirement in June of that year, before the film hit theaters, and told W Magazine that he “knew it was uncharacteristic to put out a statement,” but that he wanted “to draw a line” — since apparently his previous efforts to quit were always foiled.
“I didn’t want to get sucked back into another project,” he added. “All my life, I’ve mouthed off about how I should stop acting, and I don’t know why it was different this time, but the impulse to quit took root in me, and that became a compulsion. It was something I had to do.”
Fortunately for us all, he has reneged; a release date for “Anemone” has yet to be set.
CORRECTION: This story previously misstated the number of times and films for which Daniel Day-Lewis won an Oscar.
