Daniel Day-Lewis ends retirement to star in his son’s first movie, ‘Anemone’
After various hints of Daniel Day-Lewis returning to acting, the iconic Academy Award-winner has announced that he has officially come out of retirement for the upcoming film, Anemone.
The movie, which is currently filming in Manchester and across the North West of England, is set to tackle the various relationships that afflict a family. It’s also set to star Sean Bean, Samantha Morton and Samuel Bottomley alongside Day-Lewis. Notably, Anemone marks the directorial debut of Ronan Day-Lewis, the actor’s son, with whom he wrote the project.
The official news of Day-Lewis ending his retirement came after numerous shots emerged of what appeared to be the actor in character driving a motorcycle with Bean alongside him which were captured by the Daily Mail on October 1st.
In a statement following the film’s announcement, Focus Features chairman Peter Kujawski discussed the honour it was to bring the project to life, telling Variety, “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 Features previously worked with Day-Lewis on Phantom Thread back in 2017. Other collaborators on the project include Jane Petrie of The Crown handling costume design and Chris Oddy from Zone of Interest serving as production designer.
When did Daniel Day-Lewis retire from acting?
Before his most recent casting, Day-Lewis had consciously decided to step away from acting. Following his breathtaking performances and three separate Oscar wins for the coveted ‘Best Actor’ category, Day-Lewis announced his plans to bow out of the acting world in 2017 following his bout as dressmaker Reynolds Woodcock in Phantom Thread.
When pressed on the matter at the time, a spokesperson expressed the actor’s gratitude for working over his years in Hollywood, stating, “He is immensely grateful to all of his collaborators and audiences over the many years.”
Day-Lewis himself would later go into detail about his desire to move away from the big screen, explaining, “But I did want to draw a line. I didn’t want to get sucked back into another project. 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.”
However, there had also been rumblings that the There Will Be Blood actor could have been making a return to the big screen over the past 12 months. At the National Board of Review Awards, Martin Scorsese, who he worked with on Gangs of New York, praised Day-Lewis as an actor when accepting a gong for Killers of the Flower Moon, and also implied that he possibly had plans to make a return to the world of film.
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