Paul Thomas Anderson Wants Daniel Day-Lewis To Come Out Of Retirement

Director Paul Thomas Anderson hopes that Daniel Day-Lewis will one day come out of retirement. Anderson might have more sway over the actor than the average moviegoer. PTA directed Day-Lewis in There Will Be Blood (2007) and Phantom Thread (2017), helming two of the actor’s most searing performances. Day-Lewis won the Academy Award for Best Actor for the former and received a nomination for the latter. Anderson is known for eliciting great performances out of actors in his other films, including Boogie Nights, Punch-Drunk Love, and The Master. 

Considered one of the greatest actors of his generation, Daniel Day-Lewis is the only male actor to have won three Academy Awards for Best Actor, for his aforementioned collaboration with Anderson and his roles in My Left Foot and Lincoln. He’s also been lauded for his performances in The Last of the Mohicans, In the Name of the Father, Gangs of New York, and many others. Following the completion of Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis announced his retirement from acting. 

In an interview with Variety, Anderson expresses his desire for Day-Lewis to return to acting. “We can all get together and hope he’ll come back,” says Anderson. “Wouldn’t it be great?” Anderson positions himself less as a peer that directed Day-Lewis to an Oscar win and more as a hopeful fan. “Yes, I’m greedy like everybody else,” he adds. “I want more Daniel Day-Lewis performances.” Read Anderon’s statement on Day-Lewis’ retirement below: 

“We can all get together and hope he’ll come back. Wouldn’t it be great? When Phantom Thread came out, I was asked about it a lot, and I feel the same way now that I did then. Yes, I’m greedy like everybody else. I want more Daniel Day-Lewis performances. But I also think he’s given us more than enough, and we should stop being so greedy. He’s the king.”

Rather than pestering his former collaborator, Anderson asserts that fans–himself included–should “stop being so greedy” and appreciate the actor’s impressive body of work. “I…think he’s given us more than enough,” he concludes, before tipping his hat to Day-Lewis: “He’s the king.” Still, fans can’t help but hope that the actor’s supposed retirement is short-lived. Following 1997’s The Boxer, Day-Lewis announced a semi-retirement, decamping to Florence to take up the craft of shoemaking. Martin Scorsese reportedly traveled to Italy to convince Day-Lewis to take the part of Bill the Butcher in Gangs of New York.

Like Scorsese, Paul Thomas Anderson is only one of three directors with whom Day-Lewis has collaborated on multiple occasions (the third is Jim Sheridan, alone in the lofty three-timers club). Perhaps he, of all people, could nudge Daniel Day-Lewis out of retirement. Fortunately for the famously private actor, Anderson doesn’t seem particularly inclined to force Day-Lewis into acting once again. In any case, Anderson is busy these days promoting Licorice Pizza, his forthcoming (and by the looks of it, his much more ebullient) follow-up to Phantom Thread. 

Source: Variety