In a shock to the filmmaking world, Daniel Day-Lewis is, seven years after quitting acting, returning to the business in a project directed by his son Ronan Day-Lewis. Written by father and son, the film, titled Anemone, is said to costar Sean Bean, Samantha Morton, Samuel Bottomley and Safia Oakley-Green.
Confirmation came after a day of much puzzled speculation. At lunchtime on Tuesday, the Daily Mail ran a story headlined “Unrecognisable star makes shock return to film set after quitting acting”. Photographs appeared to show the Oscar winner, wearing glasses and handlebar moustache, riding a motorbike with Bean on the pillion. The newspaper claimed the shoot in Manchester was for a film titled Avelyn. The subsequent bafflement in the movie press confirmed what a good job the Day-Lewises had done keeping the shoot secret. There was no mention of Avelyn on the Internet Movie Database or on any other cinema site.
Later that evening, trade publications such as Variety and the Hollywood Reporter announced the existence of Anemone. The film, which is said to “explore family bonds”, is to be produced by Focus Features and Plan B (the company cofounded by Brad Pitt). “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,” Peter Kujawski, chairman of Focus Features, said in a statement. “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, the only man to win three Oscars for best actor, surprised the world by withdrawing from acting following his 2017 performance in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Phantom Thread. “Daniel Day-Lewis will no longer be working as an actor,” a spokesperson explained. “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.”
Inevitably, cinema analysts wondered if one of the great auteurs with whom Day-Lewis had previously worked – Paul Thomas Anderson, Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg – might lure the actor, who has Irish and British citizenship, back before the camera. Scorsese recently teased the idea. “We did two films together and it’s one of the greatest experiences of my life,” he said at the National Board of Review awards earlier this year. “Maybe there’s time for one more. Maybe! He’s the best.” There was, however, little inkling he was poised to make a return so soon.
Ronan Day-Lewis, born in 1998, when the family was living largely in Ireland, is the son of Daniel and his wife Rebecca Miller. He is, therefore, also the grandson of the playwright Arthur Miller. Having made just the odd short film, he now moves into features with a candidate for greatest living actor as his star.
Day-Lewis snr won his first Oscar, on a night that energised Irish film, for Jim Sheridan’s My Left Foot in 1990. He went on to win further Academy Awards for There Will Be Blood and Lincoln. Sheridan was also recently drawn into conversation about his old friend’s potential re-entry to show business. “We were talking about a project. Daniel was only going to be involved, if he did get involved, as an executive producer, not as an actor,” he said in March. “It was on the life of Joe Kennedy, the patriarch of the Kennedy family ... We haven’t advanced it, we were just talking.”
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