Daniel Day-Lewis has nothing more to prove, he’s won three Best Actor Oscars, for “My Left Foot,” “There Will Be Blood,” and “Lincoln,” and then abruptly retired after starring in Paul Thomas Anderson’s “Phantom Thread.”
Yet, it doesn’t look like he’s leaving the profession behind. He’s back with a new film, “Anemone,” directed by his son, Ronan, and co-written by them both, and the gig seems to have reignited something in him. In an interview with Empire, he’s hinting at more projects to come:
The appetite always seems to emerge in relation to something that I’ve become fascinated with, and I believe that could very easily happen […] I’m certainly not going to shy away from it.
It was just this year that Martin Scorsese hinted at collaborating with Day-Lewis for one more film during the National Board of Review awards ceremony:
We did two films together and it’s one of the greatest experiences of my life… maybe there’s time for one more.
Wouldn’t it be great if Scorsese manages to get the actor to star in his upcoming adaptation of Marilynne Robinson’s “Home”? Day-Lewis would be perfect in the role of the father.
Such a return hadn’t been on the cards at all. In the years following “Phantom Thread,” Day-Lewis says he embarked on woodworking. This is nothing new; back in the late ’90s, during his first retirement, he spent a year as an apprentice shoemaker in Florence.
Turns out, this last decade, Day-Lewis “went back to school” in Boston, and studied “violin making” at North Bennett. The man loves his woodworking.
“Anemone” follows a former British soldier (Day-Lewis) who has estranged himself from his family—until his brother Jem (Sean Bean) comes to find him, that is. It’s not autobiographical, but as father and son wrote it, it became more personal than they’d expected.
The film, which is set to have its world premiere next month at the New York Film Festival, is set for October 10 release via Focus Features.