Daniel Day-Lewis Returns to The Screen in Intense First Trailer for ANEMONE With Sean Bean
Focus Features has dropped a gripping trailer for Anemone, marking the highly anticipated return of Daniel Day-Lewis to acting after a seven-year absence.
The three-time Oscar winner hasn’t been seen on screen since Phantom Thread in 2017, and now he’s back with what looks like another emotionally heavy and potentially award-worthy performance.
Anemone is a personal project for Day-Lewis. Not only does he star in it, but the film is also the directorial debut of his son, Ronan Day-Lewis, who co-wrote the script with his father.
Produced by Brad Pitt’s Plan B, the film dives into the turbulent emotional territory of family trauma and unresolved pain, centering on the complex relationships between brothers, fathers, and sons.
While the plot remains deliberately vague, the trailer sets the mood with a moody, rain-soaked atmosphere as Day-Lewis’s character, Ray Stoker, isolates himself deep in a wooded landscape haunted by memories. The story unfolds primarily through raw and intense conversations between Ray and a mysterious man played by Sean Bean.
“All these years, the isolation. This is it. This is my life,” Day-Lewis says in the trailer, immediately setting the somber tone. Bean’s character responds, “I’ve seen my share of lost souls.”
There are cryptic references to their pasts, including one of the trailer’s most haunting lines from Day-Lewis: “The army teaches you to grin and bear it. The war was the crime and we were the phantom soldiers.” Bean presses for answers: “I can’t help you till you tell me what happened.”
Day-Lewis replies sharply, “Is that a question? What do you want from me, brother? What do you want?”
The tension peaks with Bean warning, “You’re going to hell, brother,” to which Day-Lewis delivers a chilling response: “Family reunion.”
This project marks an unexpected return for Day-Lewis, who had previously announced his retirement from acting in 2017. At the time, his publicist stated, “Daniel Day-Lewis will no longer be working as an actor. He is immensely grateful to all of his collaborators and audiences over the many years.”
Whether this father-son collaboration has reignited his passion for film remains to be seen, but Anemone is already shaping up to be one of the most talked-about dramas of the year.
The cast also includes Samuel Bottomley, Safia Oakley-Green, and Samantha Morton. Anemone opens in limited release on October 3 before expanding on October 10.