Daniel Day-Lewis was retired. His son is just getting started

Consider This from NPR

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🗓️ 3 October 2025

⏱️ 12 minutes

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Summary

Eight years ago, Daniel Day-Lewis announced he was retired from acting. He offered no further comment. Retirement notwithstanding, the three-time winner of the Oscar for Best Actor stars in a new movie, out this week. He plays a man who long ago left the world he once knew – and then is contacted by a family member to come back.

It was written with and directed by his son, Ronan Day-Lewis.

Father and son speak about their new film, Anemone.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Eight years ago, Daniel DeLewis quietly dropped a bomb on the film world in the form of a short
0:07.2	statement, Daniel DeLuis will no longer be working as an actor, it said. This is a private decision,
0:14.4	and neither he nor his representatives will make any further comment on this subject. Well, the
0:20.5	statement was shocking, in part because of how
0:22.9	dedicated DeLewis was to his craft. Here he is talking to NPR in 2007. For me, the work is really
0:30.1	pure pleasure. I do the work because I love to do it, not because I feel the need to punish myself.
0:36.1	I do something else if I needed to punish myself.
0:39.3	I love to do the work that I do.
0:41.3	It's a game.
0:42.3	It was also surprising because he was so good at it.
0:46.3	De Lewis won a record three best actor Oscars, and he really inhabited each role, whether it was President Lincoln.
0:54.7	Blood's been spilled to afford us this moment now, now, now.
1:00.1	Or whether he was playing a ruthless oil prospector.
1:04.7	There are times when I look at people and I see nothing worth liking.
1:10.6	Or maybe it's that the characters were inhabiting him. Do you... I look at people and I see nothing worth liking.
1:14.3	Or maybe it's that the characters were inhabiting him.
1:19.8	You start from scratch, you begin with nothing, you reduce yourself as far as possible,
1:26.0	to the state of an empty vessel, which may or may not fill with something that's going to be useful.
1:29.4	De Lewis described it as a silent partnership.
1:33.1	What could be more liberating than to explore with impunity,
1:38.0	the darker recesses of one's imagination and psyche?
1:40.6	And I suppose that has always appealed to me.
	...

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