Daniel Day-Lewis reveals he “never intended to retire” from acting
Ahead of his cinematic comeback in Anemone, Daniel Day-Lewis has admitted that he “never intended to retire” from his profession.
Anemone is the directorial debut of his son, Ronan Day-Lewis, and is set to premiere at the New York Film Festival later this month. The film, which also stars Sean Bean, will then be released in UK cinemas on November 7th.
After appearing in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Phantom Thread in 2017, Day-Lewis disappeared from Hollywood and has now explained why his son, Ronan, becoming a director was the catalyst for his comeback.
The actor said of his desire to collaborate with his son in a new joint interview with Rolling Stone, “I had some residual sadness because I knew Ronan was going to go on to make films, and I was walking away from that. I thought, wouldn’t it be lovely if we could do something together and find a way of maybe containing it, so that it didn’t necessarily have to be something that required all the paraphernalia of a big production.”
He also knew that Ronan wouldn’t go ahead without him in the lead role, sharing, “Ro made it pretty clear that he wasn’t going to do it if I didn’t do it. But we had a very happy time writing this story together, and I think it was really in the spirit of wanting to just keep that ball in the air that we thought, ‘We’ll keep moving forwards with this, whatever that means’.”
While Day-Lewis admitted to having a “low-level fear” and “anxiety about re-engaging with the business of filmmaking”, he stressed that “the work was always something I loved”.
Elsewhere in the interview, Day-Lewis honestly reflected of his decision to retire, “But looking back on it now — I would have done well to just keep my mouth shut, for sure. [Laughs.] It just seems like such grandiose gibberish to talk about. I never intended to retire, really.”
He clarified, “I just stopped doing that particular type of work so I could do some other work. I never, you know… Apparently, I’ve been accused of retiring twice now. I never meant to retire from anything! I just wanted to work on something else for a while.”
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