Daniel Day-Lewis made his grand return to the screen in “Anemone,” which premiered on Sunday afternoon at the New York Film Festival. The Oscar-winner returned to acting after an eight-year absence to star in the directorial debut of his son, Ronan.
“It’s a privilege beyond words to be here with everyone tonight,” Ronan Day-Lewis, who co-wrote the script with his dad, told the packed house at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall. “I’m at a loss for words.”
Set in Northern England, “Anemone” follows Day-Lewis as Ray, a recluse and former British soldier who has been living in isolation in the woods for two decades. His life is upended when his brother, portrayed by Sean Bean, shows up and forces him to confront his mysterious past. Samantha Morton, Samuel Bottomley and Safia Oakley-Green, who weren’t in attendance at Sunday afternoon’s premiere, round out the cast.
Ronan Day-Lewis described a “very intuitive” working relationship with his father. “We fell into a rhythm early on,” Ronan told Variety on the red carpet. “It was a real sense of play and freedom.”
Daniel Day-Lewis echoed his son’s sentiments, insisting the on-set collaboration between the two was familiar and easy.
“Over the years since Ronan was very, very small, we’ve worked on a lot of different things together,” he told Variety. “There was always a great ease in each other’s company, and this was really an extension of that. It was just a bigger toy box to play in.”
”Anemone” actually isn’t the first cinematic team-up between Daniel and Ronan, the younger Day-Lewis revealed from the stage after the screening. Growing up, Ronan said, “We made a fake Nike commercial starring my pet tortoise.”
When it came to adding to their duo, both Day-Lewis men agreed that Bean was the only choice to play Ray’s estranged brother. Before filming, Bean was invited by Daniel Day-Lewis to Ireland, where the two bonded over “pints of Guinness and whiskey.”
“It was a great way to explore a situation,” Bean said. “We got along very well and that was crucial to me to get into the story of two brothers.”
Prior to “Anemone,” Daniel Day-Lewis had last appeared in Paul Thomas Anderson’s 2017 period drama “Phantom Thread,” for which he earned his sixth Oscar nomination. The actor, considered one of the best of his generation, has won three Academy Awards for 1989’s “My Left Foot,” 2007’s “There Will Be Blood” and 2012’s “Lincoln.”
He decided to return to Hollywood this time around because he wanted to work with his son. “I had some residual sadness because I knew Ronan was going to go on to make films, and I was walking away from that,” he previously told Rolling Stone. “I thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be lovely if we could do something together and find a way of maybe containing it, so it didn’t necessarily have to be something that required all the paraphernalia of a big production?’”
Day-Lewis had retired from acting in the past. After starring in 1997’s sports drama “The Boxer,” he took an extended absence from the screen to become a shoemaker in Italy. He returned in Martin Scorsese’s 2002 crime epic “Gangs of New York” as Bill the Butcher.
“Looking back on it now — I would have done well to just keep my mouth shut, for sure. It just seems like such grandiose gibberish to talk about. I never intended to retire, really,” he said in the Rolling Stone interview. “I just stopped doing that particular type of work so I could do some other work. Apparently, I’ve been accused of retiring twice now. I never meant to retire from anything! I just wanted to work on something else for a while.”
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