Daniel Day-Lewis may have drank his last milkshake after all. Despite some chatter that the three-time Oscar winner may be coming out of retirement, director Jim Sheridan is quelling the rumors, saying that any meetings they have had weren’t what fans may have been hoping for.
Speaking with Deadline at the Doha Film Festival in Qatar, Sheridan – who directed Daniel Day-Lewis three times, more than any other director – said that he and the actor did in fact meet but it was for a project that would have found the actor working behind the camera. “We were talking about a project. Daniel was only going to be involved, if he did get involved, as an executive producer, not as an actor.”
As for what this mystery project even was, Sheridan said, “It was on the life of Joe Kennedy, the patriarch of the Kennedy family…we haven’t advanced it, we were just talking.” Had Daniel Day-Lewis actually even been in talks to play Kennedy Sr., it would have been fitting at least, considering he has played historical politicians in the past, even turning our image of one on its stovepipe-clad head.
Rumors of Daniel Day-Lewis emerging from retirement after a seven-year absence came about due to the aforementioned meeting, which Lincoln director Steven Spielberg was also in attendance for. And when Day-Lewis honored Martin Scorsese with the National Board of Review award for Best Director, the filmmaker pondered if “Maybe there’s time for one more”, following 1993’s The Age of Innocence and 2002’s Gangs of New York.
While we don’t have concrete evidence that Daniel Day-Lewis will never grace the big screen again, Sheridan’s words have only deflated our hopes. Then again, he retired once before after 1997’s The Boxer, only to reemerge for Gangs of New York, so, as it goes in Hollywood, never say never.
On his retirement, Daniel Day-Lewis said – particularly in regards to what stands as his final film, 2017’s Phantom Thread – “I dread to use the overused word ‘artist,’ but there’s something of the responsibility of the artist that hung over me. I need to believe in the value of what I’m doing. The work can seem vital. Irresistible, even. And if an audience believes it, that should be good enough for me. But, lately, it isn’t.”
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