Daniel Day-Lewis has confirmed he is returning to acting in a new film directed by his son, the painter and filmmaker Ronan Day-Lewis.
Rumours spread earlier today after the 67-year-old three-time Oscar winner was photographed on a film set in Manchester, England, seven years after announcing his retirement.
In a statement to The Independent, Focus Features and Plan B announced they are partnering on Ronan Day-Lewis’s debut film Anemone, from a script by Daniel Day-Lewis and Ronan Day-Lewis.
Along with Daniel Day-Lewis in his first role since 2017’s Phantom Thread, the film will also star Sean Bean, Samantha Morton, Samuel Bottomley and Safia Oakley-Green.
According to the statement, “Anemone explores the intricate relationships between fathers, sons and brothers, and the dynamics of familial bonds.”
Focus Features chairman Peter Kujawski added: “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.
“They have written a truly exceptional script, and we look forward to bringing their shared vision to audiences alongside the team at Plan B.”
Day-Lewis, one of the most widely respected actors of his generation, announced his retirement in 2017.
“Daniel Day-Lewis will no longer be working as an actor,” his representative Leslee Dart said in a short statement at the time.
“He is immensely grateful to all of his collaborators and audiences over the many years. This is a private decision and neither he nor his representatives will make any further comment on this subject.”
Daniel Day-Lewis holds his Oscar for Best Actor received for his role in Lincoln in 2013, his third such win. Pic: PA
It was not the first time Day-Lewis expressed a desire to step away from acting.
After starring in 1997’s The Boxer, he disappeared from the big screen for five years until Martin Scorsese convinced him to return for Gangs of New York. During that time, he reportedly took up shoemaking in Italy, explaining to the Guardian: “I didn’t really want to be involved with films. I just wanted some time away from it all. I need that quite often.”
The announcement of his retirement came as a surprise and sent shockwaves through Hollywood, with Day-Lewis being revered as perhaps the finest actor of his time.
Day-Lewis has long been an exceptionally deliberate performer who often spends years preparing for a role, crafting his characters with an uncommon, methodical completeness.
“I don’t dismember a character into its component parts and then kind of bolt it all together, and off you go,” Day-Lewis said in 2012, discussing Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln. “I tend to try and allow things to happen slowly, over a long period of time. As I feel I’m growing into a sense of that life, if I’m lucky, I begin to hear a voice.”
His method approach has perhaps been overstated and simplified however, with the actor joking about his reputation for extreme preparation during a Bafta acceptance speech in 2013 that he had stayed “in character as myself for the past 55 years.”
A five-time Academy Award nominee, Day-Lewis is the only man to ever win Best Actor three times, earning Oscars for My Left Foot, Lincoln and There Will Be Blood.
Frances McDormand won Best Actress three times, for 1996’s Fargo, 2017’s Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, and 2020’s Nomadland.
Married to writer-director Rebecca Miller with three children, Day-Lewis broke through with 1985’s My Beautiful Laundrette by Stephen Frears. His films also include The Last of the Mohicans, The Age of Innocence and In the Name of the Father.