Why Daniel Day-Lewis finally decided to give up acting after starring in Phantom Thread
The famously private three-time Oscar-winning actor talks about how he has toyed with quitting before, but the sadness he felt during filming convinced him to give up the career he has followed since he was 12 years old
Daniel Day-Lewis has played a few monsters during his illustrious career. Daniel Plainview from There Will Be Blood isn’t someone you’d want to spend much time with – especially if there were any heavy objects nearby – but he was a kitten compared to the homicidal Bill “the Butcher” Cutting from Gangs of New York.
As difficult as those characters were to play, though, they weren’t the ones to send the three-time Oscar winner fleeing from his profession. That would be his latest (and apparently last) role as the exacting fashion designer Reynolds Woodcock in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Phantom Thread.
“Before making the film, I didn’t know I was going to stop acting,” he said during a lengthy interview with W Magazine. “I do know that Paul and I laughed a lot before we made it. And then we stopped laughing because we were both overwhelmed by a sense of sadness. That took us by surprise: We didn’t realise what we had given birth to. It was hard to live with. And still is.”
Three-time Oscar winner Daniel Day-Lewis announces retirement from acting
Over the summer, Day-Lewis’s publicist released a statement to Variety that was light on specifics but revealed that Phantom Thread would be his final film.
“This is a private decision and neither he nor his representatives will make any further comment on this subject,” the statement read.
Day-Lewis is famously private, so releasing a statement felt like an unusual move, but he had his motivations.