Daniel Day-Lewis, a three-time Oscar winner, one of the greatest to ever act on screen, knows the drill by now. Every second decade he pulls the lever, declares he’s done with acting, and then — surprise — comes back.
The three-time Oscar winner showed up at the New York Film Festival this week for the press screening of “Anemone,” his first leading role since 2017’s “Phantom Thread.” He took part in the post-screening Q&A.
Asked about his dramatic habit of hanging up his acting gloves, Day-Lewis spoke without filter: “I’ve gotten accused of retiring twice now,” he laughed. “I probably made a f–king fool of myself by announcing that I was going to stop working — and I probably made a fool of myself by coming back.”
This is, after all, the same Daniel Day-Lewis who released that infamous statement in 2017 — via his reps, in the most self-serious of fashion — declaring he would no longer act. “This is a private decision,” it read. No further comments were to be made. And yet, here we are.
Day-Lewis now admits his last acting role left him in rough shape. “After the last film I made, I was in very low spirits,” he said of “Phantom Thread.” The film gave him a sixth Oscar nomination, but also apparently drove him into retreat. Eight years later, it took his son Ronan’s directorial debut, “Anemone,” to bring him out of retirement.
The good news is that Day-Lewis, 68, might actually be coming back for good, whether he likes it or not. This time, though, he sounds more at peace with it: “I told myself, ‘I’m doing this [retiring] because I don’t really expect to find my way back to the appetite for this work again. And I did. I’m really grateful for it, and I hope to do it again.”
The review embargo on “Anemone” breaks this Sunday, with Focus Features rolling the film out in theaters on October 10.
While James L. Brooks teased last year that "we'll soon be seeing" Jack Nicholson, 89, act again, and that he was "reading scripts," that idea has now been shut down by his close friend Michael Douglas, 82.