Daniel Day-Lewis has said he “never intended to retire” from acting, describing his previous announcements as “grandiose gibberish”. The three-time Oscar winner makes his return to the screen in Anemone, directed by his son Ronan Day-Lewis, after an eight-year hiatus.
In an interview with Rolling Stone, Day-Lewis reflected on his decision to step away from acting in 2017 following Phantom Thread. “I just stopped doing that particular type of work so I could do some other work,” he said. “Apparently, I’ve been accused of retiring twice now. I never meant to retire from anything!”
The actor’s announcement in 2017 had been unequivocal, with a representative stating that he “will no longer be working as an actor”. He had also taken a break from film acting between The Boxer (1997) and Gangs of New York (2002), and walked away from stage acting in 1989 during a run of Hamlet at the National Theatre.
Day-Lewis said the opportunity to collaborate with his son rekindled his passion. “As I get older, it just takes me longer and longer to find my way back to the place where the furnace is burning again,” he said. “But working with Ro, that furnace just lit up. And it was, from beginning to end, just pure joy.”
He admitted to feeling a “low-level fear” about returning to film-making, and that the experience of making Phantom Thread had left him “hollowed out”. He explained: “I understood that it was all part of the process, and that there would be a regeneration eventually. But it was only really in the last experience that I began to feel quite strongly that maybe there wouldn’t be that regeneration any more.”
Anemone will have its world premiere at the New York film festival in September. Day-Lewis has won three best actor Oscars for My Left Foot, There Will Be Blood and Lincoln, and was nominated a further three times.
