Re - emerging

AFTER YEARS OFF-GRID, DANIEL DAY-LEWIS HAS RETURNED TO CINEMA IN ANEMONE,A BRACING DRAMA DIRECTED BY HIS SON, RONAN. WE MEET THEM TOGETHER IN NEW YORK TO UNPACK THEIR UNIQUE COLLABORATION

WORDS ALEX GODFREY

DANIEL DAY-LEWIS HAS BEEN AWAY.

Empire is in Manhattan’s unfeasibly illustrious Hotel Chelsea with the 68-year-old and his 27-year-old artist son Ronan, and we remark on how nice it is to be doing this in the flesh. “Yeah, I missed that whole transition into not meeting anymore,” says Day-Lewis Sr, who requested this conversation be face-to-face. It’s been eight years since he announced that he would no longer be acting, and in his absence, the film industry has had its ups and downs, as has the world, taking in a pandemic which heralded, well, more video interviews than we were previously accustomed to. Yet here we are, and here he is too: nothing less than a living legend, having returned to the fold with a thoroughly family endeavour.

Family is everything to Day-Lewis. You can see it on his body, the outlines of his sons’ hands tattooed up his own arms. Family is everything in the extremely intense Anemone, Ronan’s debut film, which they wrote together, and which swirls — tumultuously — around Daniel’s snarling, unforgiving hermit Ray Stoker, living in a cabin in a wood, visited out of the blue by his brother Jem (Sean Bean), who lives with Ray’s ex-partner Nessa (Samantha Morton) and Ray’s son Brian (Sam Bottomley), who has never met him. And family is everything here in Manhattan, where Daniel and Ronan (who both live nearby) spend an hour with Empire discussing the film, and their relationship. Throughout, Daniel is utterly engaged with Ronan, hanging on his every word. Throughout, they complete each other’s thoughts, and sentences.

The actor has worked with a litany of great directors, pumping out a slew of classics, and winning three Best Actor Oscars. Clearly, though, the experience he just had making a film with his son is more meaningful than any of that. “I mean, how can it not be?” he smiles. The love radiates from both of them.

What does it feel like, doing an interview together?

Daniel Day-Lewis: Well, it takes the curse off it (laughs). And it feels very natural, because from the first notion that we ever had which led us to this, we’ve done everything together. So it’s nice to keep going with that.

It’s interesting to consider how your own relationship informed this film. Ronan, you spent quite a lot of time as you were growing up on your dad’s productions. What was that like?

Ronan: It was amazing. I was so lucky to be taken to these places. We were in [Canada’s] Prince Edward Island when they were shooting [Daniel’s wife and Ronan’s mother, Rebecca Miller’s] The Ballad Of Jack And Rose [2005], which was such a formative experience for me. Just seeing that set be built and come to life. I was so young, I didn’t really understand what was happening, but seeing that world being created was so intoxicating.