
©Courtesy of film, “Nine”
After a ten-year hiatus, three-time Oscar winner Daniel Day-Lewis will be returning to movie screens in Anemone, scheduled for limited release by Focus Films on October 3 and general release a week later. It will be the actor’s screenwriting debut as well as his first film appearance since his 2017 role in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Phantom Thread, after which he announced his retirement.
Directed by his son Ronan Day-Lewis, Anemone is an exploration of the emotional relationships between fathers, sons, and brothers. Also appearing in the cast will be Sean Bean, Samuel Bottomley, Safia Oakley-Green, and Samantha Morton. The script was written by Daniel and is being produced by Brad Pitt’s Plan B.
In announcing the release of Anemone, Focus Features chair Peter Kujawski was quoted as saying: “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.”
With Anemone, Daniel Day-Lewis is coming out of retirement, which he announced even before the release of Phantom Thread in 2017. At the time, the actor told an interviewer of the sadness that prompted his decision: “I haven’t figured it out. But it’s settled on me, and it’s just there. Not wanting to see the film is connected to the decision I’ve made to stop working as an actor. But it’s not why the sadness came to stay. That happened during the telling of the story, and I don’t really know why.”
He added: “I dread to use the overused word ‘artist,’ but there’s something of the responsibility of the artist that hung over me. I need to believe in the value of what I’m doing. The work can seem vital. Irresistible, even. And if an audience believes it, that should be good enough for me. But, lately, it isn’t.”
It’s not yet clear whether his role in Anemone will signal Day-Lewis’s return to an active professional life. Though he began his acting career in the 1970s, Daniel Day-Lewis first came to prominence in 1985, when he appeared in My Beautiful Laundrette. In 1990, he won his first Academy Award for Best Actor in My Left Foot. He later won two other Oscars, for his appearances in Lincoln and There Will Be Blood.
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