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Daniel Day-Lewis is back in the business.
In a new interview with Rolling Stone, the Oscar winner, 68, explained his decision to come out of retirement to star in his son Ronan’s new film, “Anemone.”
“Looking back on it now — I would have done well to just keep my mouth shut, for sure,” Day-Lewis, who announced he was retiring from acting in 2017, told the outlet. “It just seems like such grandiose gibberish to talk about.”
“I never intended to retire, really,” the “Lincoln” star clarified. “I just stopped doing that particular type of work so I could do some other work. I never, you know… 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.”
Describing himself as “a proud person” with “a lot of pride,” Day-Lewis explained that he intended to stop taking film roles, but he never fell out of love with acting.
“I do feel it’s important to restate that the love of the work itself, that has never diminished for me,” he shared.
“The work was always something I loved. I never, ever stopped loving the work,” he continued, admitting that he had “reservations” about acting again that “were entirely a reflection of fear.”
“There were aspects of the way of life that went with it that I’d never come to terms with — from the day I started out to today,” Day-Lewis said. “There’s something about that process that left me feeling hollowed out at the end of it. I mean, I was well acquainted with it. I understood that it was all part of the process, and that there would be a regeneration eventually.”
Day-Lewis said that after his last movie, 2017’s “Phantom Thread,” he “began to feel quite strongly that maybe there wouldn’t be that regeneration anymore.”
“That I just probably should just keep away from it,” he added, “because I didn’t have anything else to offer.”
But after eight years away from Hollywood, Day-Lewis “had some residual sadness” realizing Ronan, 27, was going to be making films, which sparked his decision to return to acting.
“I thought, wouldn’t it be lovely if we could do something together and find a way of maybe containing it, so that it didn’t necessarily have to be something that required all the paraphernalia of a big production,” Day-Lewis explained.
The “My Left Foot” star said that collaborating with his son on Ronan’s directorial debut was “pure joy.”
“As I get older, it just takes me longer and longer to find my way back to the place where the furnace is burning again,” Day-Lewis shared. “But working with Ro, that furnace just lit up.”
“Anemone,” written by the father-son duo, “explores the complex and profound ties that exist between brothers, fathers, and sons,” according to Focus Features’ description of the film. Sean Bean, Samantha Morton, Samuel Bottomley and Safia Oakley-Green also star.
Day-Lewis claimed he was stepping away from show business in June 2017.
“Daniel Day-Lewis will no longer be working as an actor. He is immensely grateful to all of his collaborators and audiences over the many years,” his rep, Leslee Dart, said in a statement. “This is a private decision and neither he nor his representatives will make any further comment on this subject.”
But the “Gangs of New York” star later admitted he wasn’t sure why he was retiring from acting, telling W magazine in November 2017: “I haven’t figured it out. But it’s settled on me, and it’s just there.”
“I have great sadness,” he added at the time. “And that’s the right way to feel. How strange would it be if this was just a gleeful step into a brand-new life.”
