Three-time Oscar winner Daniel Day-Lewis, who announced his retirement from acting in 2017, is back to the screen in Anemone, a film he co-wrote with his son Ronan Day-Lewis, who is making his feature directorial debut.
Ronan, 27, is one of two sons of Day-Lewis and Rebecca Miller—famed playwright Arthur Miller’s daughter. His first ever feature film is getting the ultimate nepo baby treatment, with Focus Features and Brad Pitt’s production company Plan B producing.
The father-son project will explore the “complex and profound ties that exist between brothers, fathers, and sons,” according to Focus’ description of the melancholy movie, which also stars Sean Bean and Samantha Morton.
The first trailer for the film shows Day-Lewis as a recluse who reluctantly reunites with his estranged brother (Bean) after he seeks him out in the woods of Northern England. Secrets, confessions, and a history of violence create the perfect storm for a reckoning, which Day-Lewis will play with his usual emotional depth despite swearing off his profession seven years ago.
His spokeswoman told Variety in 2017, “Daniel Day-Lewis will no longer be working as an actor… This is a private decision and neither he nor his representatives will make any further comment on this subject.”
He explained further in a rare interview with W Magazine later that year, “I knew it was uncharacteristic to put out a statement, but I did want to draw a line. I didn’t want to get sucked back into another project. All my life, I’ve mouthed off about how I should stop acting, and I don’t know why it was different this time, but the impulse to quit took root in me, and that became a compulsion. It was something I had to do.”
Day-Lewis cited lingering depression after playing Reynolds Woodcock in what was meant to be his last film, Paul Thomas Anderson’s Phantom Thread, as his reason for stepping away at the time.
But nepotism has brought him back, as he teams with his son Ronan, à la Tom Hanks’ appearance in his son Chet’s Forrest Gump-themed music video earlier this year. Hopefully this father-son team-up will yield better results.
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