In an interview with Rolling Stone for Daniel Day-Lewis’ upcoming movie, Anemone, Day-Lewis explained that he regrets announcing his retirement back in 2017. The announcement followed his role as Reynolds Woodcock in 2017’s Phantom Thread, for which he received a nomination for Best Actor at the Academy Awards. 

Day-Lewis said: “[L]ooking back on it now — I would have done well to just keep my mouth shut, for sure. [Laughs.] It just seems like such grandiose gibberish to talk about. I never intended to retire, really. 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.”

The other retirement Day-Lewis references is the five-year hiatus he took in 1997, during which he worked as a shoemaker in Italy. 

Anemone is directed and co-written by Day-Lewis’ son, Ronan. According to Day-Lewis, his role in the movie has developed since the father-son duo began writing the script in 2020.

“[W]hen we had a script and we weren’t sure what the next steps were, there was some part of me that began to feel, you know, certain reservations about being back in the public world again.” Day Lewis said. “I said to Ro, ‘Look, regardless of whether I do it or not, it’s yours to do whatever you want with them.’ And Ro made it pretty clear that he wasn’t going to do it if I didn’t do it.”

Anemone reaches theaters on October 13.