The three-time Oscar-winning actor has been absent from movie screens for eight years, until a collaboration with his son, Ronan, brought him back for «Anemone,» the story of a man living in self-exile.
He has been called the greatest actor of his generation – a three-time Oscar-winner, and reluctant star. «The work itself has always been, has remained nothing but a source of fascination and pleasure to me, the work itself», said Daniel Day-Lewis. «The aftermath of the work has always been difficult for me. You know, you become to some extent a sales rep for that work. And I’m not good at that. I never was. And I’m still not. And that particular part of it, the public part of it, has always left me feeling emptied out.»
And eight years ago, he announced his retirement. But now, a clarification: «I think that was a mistake», he said. «I think it just created a kind of confusion. At the time, I never intended to retire from anything. I chose to stop doing one kind of work so that I could perhaps concentrate on a different kind of work.»
It was part musical interlude: «My youngest son, Cashel, is a fiddle player. And once the idea took root in my head, like, ‘I wonder if I could make him a fiddle’, that was the — you know, things tend to, yeah, it’s hard to let go of a thing.»
He made three, and he says he has the makings of a fourth, «but I just haven’t got down to it yet.»
Day-Lewis admits he was surprised to feel a strong impulse to return to acting: «And largely it was in response to the knowledge that Ronan would be making films.»
Twenty-seven-year-old middle son Ronan Day-Lewis brings credentials and expectations: His mother, filmmaker and author Rebecca Miller, and grandfather, playwright Arthur Miller.
I asked Ronan, «Was your move to film a surprise to your parents?»
«Not really, because I started making little movies with my friends when I was, like, seven», he replied. «When I was really young, I would always be the one kind of annoyingly trying to corral everyone into making a little movie on our dad’s, like, flip camera in the backyard or something.»
«Anemone» is his directorial debut, co-written with his father, who plays Ray Stoker.
