Daniel Day-Lewis says his 2017 announcement that he would no longer act made his plans sound more permanent than he intended. “I never intended to retire, really,” he told Rolling Stone in 2025. He had wanted to stop acting for a while and turn to other work; his return came through Anemone, a film he co-wrote with his son Ronan Day-Lewis, who directed it.
What Day-Lewis meant by his 2017 announcement
After Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis’s representative announced in June 2017 that he would no longer work as an actor. The statement described the decision as private. In a September 2025 interview with Rolling Stone, Day-Lewis clarified that he meant to step away from acting, not to declare a permanent retirement. “I just stopped doing that particular type of work so I could do some other work,” he said.
He later told CBS News that calling it a retirement “was a mistake.” Day-Lewis also joked to Rolling Stone that he would have done well to keep quiet, because the public announcement made the decision sound grander and more final than he meant it to be. His clarification is his account of what he intended in 2017—not a claim that the original announcement never happened.
Why he stepped away—and what he still loved
Day-Lewis has distinguished his feelings about acting from his unease with returning to the filmmaking world. He told Rolling Stone, “The work was always something I loved. I never, ever stopped loving the work.” But he recalled feeling “hollowed out” after Phantom Thread and worrying that he had nothing more to offer. He also described anxiety about re-engaging with filmmaking and its public side.
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In the CBS interview, he described the work itself as “nothing but a source of fascination and pleasure to me.” The tension, as he explained it, was not that he had lost his interest in acting; he had reservations about the life around the work and about starting again.
How Ronan and Anemone brought him back
Day-Lewis said he felt “some residual sadness” knowing that Ronan would go on to make films while he was walking away from that world. Their conversations began around a possible small project, but the story grew as they wrote. Ronan made clear he would not go ahead with the film if his father did not act in it, according to their Rolling Stone interview.
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Anemone became Ronan Day-Lewis’s feature directorial debut. Father and son co-wrote the screenplay, and Daniel Day-Lewis stars. The collaboration gave Day-Lewis a reason to return to a project rooted in their work together; it does not, by itself, establish that the film’s story is autobiographical. The Associated Press also covered the film and his return in October 2025.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.When Anemone opened and how it is available
For its original U.S. release, Focus Features scheduled a limited theatrical opening for October 3, 2025, with expansion beginning October 10. Those dates describe the announced U.S. rollout, not the film’s current availability in every location. Universal Pictures at Home lists the film on DVD and 4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray.
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