Ronan Day-Lewis has addressed the “nepo-baby” label that has been applied to him in the wake of making new film, Anemone with his father, Daniel Day-Lewis.
- READ MORE: ‘Phantom Thread’ – Film Review
Daniel made his long-awaited comeback in the film last week when it premiered at the New York Film Festival. The film is directed by his son, Ronan.
Multi-time Oscar-winner Daniel was last seen in Paul Thomas Anderson’s drama Phantom Thread, after which he announced he would retire, citing “sadness” as the reason for stepping away.
Anemone also stars Sean Bean as a man who travels into Northern England’s woods to reconnect with his estranged brother (Daniel Day-Lewis), who lives as a hermit.
Now, Ronan has addressed “nepo-baby” labels that have been attached to him since news of the project was first announced in August.
“I knew that the baggage that would be attached to working with my dad and also the pressure that would be attached to that,” he told Variety. “I definitely had some ambivalence. I wanted to carve my own path, and I foresaw how it might be perceived. There’s rightfully been a lot of talk about nepotism.”
He told the outlet he ultimately had to brush aside any concerns of being called a “nepo-baby” and take up the chance to work with his father.
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“It’s such a cosmically lucky thing to be able to work with your parent in this way. Ten years from now, I’d be kicking myself if I’d passed it up.”
Speaking about his father’s career, Ronan added: “His work was so mysterious to me. It was always kind of behind a curtain. Others mythologised him and I absorbed that. He’s my dad, but then also he had this other life that he would kind of disappear into in these films he would do.
“Getting to see that process from this completely different vantage point was pretty thrilling. There were aspects of it that are still a mystery to me, because so much of what he does and the way he works to makes these people feel like real human beings is kind of mystical.”
Speaking to Rolling Stone recently about why he initially retired, Daniel remarked: “The work was always something I loved. I never, ever stopped loving the work. But there were aspects of the way of life that went with it that I’d never come to terms with — from the day I started out to today. There’s something about that process that left me feeling hollowed out at the end of it.”
He continued: “I was well acquainted with it. I understood that it was all part of the process, and that there would be a regeneration eventually. And it was only really in the last experience [making Phantom Thread] that I began to feel quite strongly that maybe there wouldn’t be that regeneration anymore. That I just probably should just keep away from it, because I didn’t have anything else to offer.”
The pull to return came from seeing Ronan begin his career as a filmmaker, he told the outlet. “I had some residual sadness because I knew Ronan was going to go on to make films, and I was walking away from that.” He explained. “I thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be lovely if we could do something together and find a way of maybe containing it, so that it didn’t necessarily have to be something that required all the paraphernalia of a big production?’”
The star also confessed a certain amount of trepidation about returning. “It was just kind of a low-level fear” he said, “[an] anxiety about re-engaging with the business of filmmaking,”
Anemone was released in US cinemas today (October 3), and then in the UK on November 7.
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