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Often referred to as one of the greatest actors in cinema history, Daniel Day-Lewis returns to the big screen in Anemone —only this time, he’s being directed by his son, Ronan. The father and son duo chat through the inception of the psychological drama, from the four-year scripting period to Daniel’s on-screen adaptation.
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00:00I think one of the great misapprehensions about, you know, method acting has suddenly got a bad rap.
00:07But if it interferes with other people's work, it's you've gone wrong.
00:22So what is your first memory of me?
00:25That would have been when you were born.
00:27Right, right.
00:28Yeah.
00:28Right.
00:30Absolutely.
00:31How did I come across?
00:32Delightful.
00:33You came across well.
00:34I mean, we settled on Ronan definitely.
00:40Now you've got me wondering.
00:42I'm pretty sure that.
00:43I know there was some other options.
00:44There was like Finn or something.
00:46Yeah.
00:47Finn was one.
00:48I won't mention a couple of others.
00:51But yeah, Ronan, it definitely seemed to be your name when you appeared.
00:57But what a wonderful day.
01:01There's this kind of memory of a memory that I remember.
01:03It's one of those things where it's like, I don't know if I have the literal memory anymore of that day.
01:11But I remember remembering it as a kid.
01:14I think I must have been like three and we were in Rome.
01:16I think you must have been making Gangs in New York.
01:19And it was just a view standing in the doorway of the house we were living in at the time.
01:27And I remember there were peacocks.
01:30That's right.
01:31It's hard to remember exactly when I started thinking seriously about wanting to make films in the future.
01:37But I remember making little, I was always trying to kind of corral Rocco and Gio into, you know, some of my childhood best friends into making little movies on like their dad's flip camera in the backyard.
01:52When I was like, when I was like, when I was a kid, I forget exactly how old, how old I was when that started.
01:57But, but yeah, I think, I think it was around eighth grade when I started thinking about it as a, as a genuine, something that I could really do, like seriously.
02:08And the film that we worked on together.
02:12Yeah.
02:13Which, which Martha starred in.
02:15Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
02:17We made a, we made a, a, a fake Nike commercial with my pet tortoise when I was like 15, which was.
02:25She was a star athlete.
02:27But yeah, no, it's hard to, it's hard to pinpoint the exact, the exact moment.
02:30I watched this film, Zombie Girl, when I was in like eighth grade about a girl who, a 12 year old girl who makes a feature length zombie film in, in her small town in Texas.
02:42And there was something about that that really, yeah, put a, put a fire in me and made me wanted to, made me want to start writing scripts.
02:51Well, we've always, I mean, with all our boys, we just tried to follow those things that they were fascinated by.
03:01And Ronan, you were like from the earliest possible age, you were making images as, as initially drawing and then soon after painting.
03:12And it was very, very clear to us that this was not just a, a childish impulse.
03:19It was something that was, you know, that was, you know, that you had a, it was rooted in you, the need to express yourself in that way.
03:30So we, we always understood that you would be a painter.
03:35And then as you started to make moving images, it was just a natural extension of that in a way, which is interesting because your mom had also started as a painter.
03:52Started as a painter.
03:53And then felt at some point the need to, to make those images move.
03:57And that's how she made that transition.
03:59I think, yeah.
04:00And I think, I think also just like, I, I'm realizing more talking about it now that moments of being on set, like for when you guys were making the Ballad of Jack and Rose on Prince Edward Island.
04:10And just seeing, seeing, seeing you guys construct this world and then kind of go into it and make it real, I think was, was definitely, I'm sure that was part of the reason why I started kind of messing around with, with film and started wanting to, wanting to make moving images.
04:28It's a fascinating thing to see a group of people all involved in the way that you would have seen it.
04:34It's not always like that on film sets, but I think it was for an enemy.
04:39Yeah.
04:40I think we created something that had that spirit.
04:43Yeah.
04:44Of a group of people who were all working towards the same end with goodwill.
04:50And, and certainly on Prince Edward Island, it had that feeling of a community of people that were striving for the same thing.
04:58I think I felt that when seeing the, like the clearing and, you know, the amazing things that Chris, Audie did to kind of bring and, you know, the Greens team and everything on an enemy to kind of create that cloistered world that was just, you know, within that clearing, it was just the world of the film.
05:15The second you stepped onto it, there was no kind of leap of imagination needed to, to feel, feel that it was real.
05:21I can't remember who first put the idea to the other.
05:24I think maybe it initially came from me, or at least I expressed to you at one time those years ago that, that I hoped we'd find a way of doing some work together.
05:36As I decided to, um, to work at something else for, for an unknown period of time, it, it, it gave me a sense of sadness that I wouldn't have that opportunity to work with you knowing that you'd make films.
05:52And so, so I think it began maybe with that, but, but in terms of the, the idea itself, we both independently developed, uh, an interest in story about brothers.
06:04For years had, this idea had been floating around for me of wanting to find, find a way, find a way into brotherhood as a, as a, just as a kind of archetype and the sort of beauty and tragedy of that, uh, relationship.
06:18I think I remember actually at one time in college when you were visiting and we were getting lunch and I, I mentioned the thing about wanting to write something about brothers.
06:26But at that point I was sort of thinking about, thinking about it maybe as more of a coming of age story or something that felt more kind of autobiographical or something that was not autobiographical, but more to do with my own world and my own kind of growing up.
06:40And, and then when it turned out that you had that independent kind of impulse to, to explore brotherhood, it was, it was kind of an amazing thing that I think that was, cause you would have, we'd have that initial conversation where you said you wanted to maybe, that maybe we could find something to work on together.
06:56But I think it was, it was actually a couple of years after that, I think, when we both realized that we had that, that the Venn diagram kind of intersected there.
07:04And that was, that was, that was an exciting moment.
07:06Right. And at that stage, it was a very abstract, it wasn't, uh, there was no, um, real focus or shape to it, um, for either of us initially, except perhaps the notion that, that there'd been an estrangement.
07:25So it was a reunion of some kind, it began with a reunion of some kind, but, but I think we were also both really interested in the idea of the silence that exists between,
07:34Yeah, we kind of went in with the idea that it would almost be like a silent.
07:38Right, right.
07:39And it kind of was for the first, like the first 10 pages we wrote, there was no, there was no dialogue.
07:44Yeah, we couldn't, we couldn't shut them up.
07:47Yeah, yeah, exactly.
07:48Shut the fuck up.
07:49When it rains, it pours, yeah.
07:50But, but then, but then, yeah, eventually, um, when we ended up showing it to Jeremy and Didi at Plan B, it felt like they, they just really understood that, um, that kind of, the,
08:04the, I guess just the archetypal sort of mythic feeling of that, um, that relationship.
08:11And, and it was exciting to, that, that was, that was a great moment when we realized that, like, because up until then we were sort of like, is this, is this actually interesting to anyone else?
08:21Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
08:21That's, that's absolutely right.
08:23It was a stroke of luck that, that, that, it seemed to coincide in the moment we,
08:28Yeah.
08:29We showed it to them with something that Jeremy and Didi were also interested in.
08:34And, I mean, we were both, I think on a daily basis, amazed and very grateful to find ourselves being allowed to do that.
08:42Yeah.
08:43Work together.
08:44Yeah, there were definitely times where we would just look around and you don't, you almost just had to laugh at the, just how cosmically lucky we were to be, to be doing it together.
08:53And, um, but our working relationship, too, I mean, like, over, like, a lifetime, you know, never mind just how we feel about each other as people, but in terms of, in terms of work or play, we shared so many things over the years.
09:12Um, that, you know, and making films is a game.
09:16It's like, it's one with fairly drastic consequences if, if you get it wrong, but it is, but, but it, for, it's just a sort of much more complex and.
09:26But it, it was fun, somehow it didn't feel complex when we were, like, when we were on set, I was, I was really pleasantly surprised by how intuitively it felt like we kind of fell into that rhythm.
09:37Like, it didn't feel, it didn't feel like there was, um, many, as many growing pains in that, in, in kind of transitioning into that working relationship.
09:44I can't think of any, quite, I just certainly didn't feel.
09:47No, me neither, yeah.
09:47It just felt like a very natural process.
09:50Yeah.
09:50Really a continuation, which, like, uh, you know, from the work that I do, um, that, that sort of first, you know, it mustn't be a confrontation with the camera.
10:00Yeah.
10:00The beast that's waiting for you.
10:02Yeah.
10:02And all the paraphernalia of a film set, the caravans and people in orange anoraks and the sound of walkie-talkies.
10:08It's a night, it's, you know, if, if you can't close off your peripheral awareness, all those things, then you're kind of lost.
10:18And so, you know, that first day to me, always, my hope is that it feels like a continuation of the work that's begun sometime before.
10:27And it felt like that because we'd said everything that needed to be said.
10:32We developed the script with each other for over a period of years.
10:36Yeah, like four years.
10:37And so it felt like just, you know, yeah, nerve wracking if you really paid attention to it that first day.
10:43But it just felt like a continuation.
10:45No, I think, I think I was hyper aware the first day of just the, the camera and how, how that was going to, just wanting to protect your performance from that, that kind of intrusive, the intrusiveness of that.
10:58And, and, but it was, it was great to, to realize that, you know, I think we established pretty early on just our balance of how to kind of dance with, like how, how your performance could kind of be in a dance with the, with the camera without it feeling like it's kind of totally getting in the way.
11:15And, and, but yeah, I think the fact that we had, we, I mean, it was, it's, it's amazing.
11:21Like I realized in retrospect how lucky we were to have that long to basically prepare just because we wrote it together, as you said, like four, having like four years basically to talk about the character and the, you know, every scene pretty much.
11:33It was like, by the time we got on set, it was, yeah.
11:35And in terms of the way in which I work, Ro, I mean, and, unless I'm, you know, like kidding myself, but, you know, I would love to believe in it.
11:44So one of the great, I think one of the great misapprehensions about, you know, method acting has suddenly got a bad rap and, and, and seems to be like a pretty easy target, mostly for people that really know very little about it.
12:00But, but, you know, it's, it's a way of working like any other way of working.
12:06If it interferes with other people's work, it's, you've gone wrong, try something else.
12:12And, and I hope that I'd like to believe that, that that was all just assimilated in the entirety of the production.
12:23It's not something that kind of like forced anybody, you or Sean or my other colleagues to have to behave any differently or do things differently.
12:34No, if anything, it kind of made it easier because there wasn't, it didn't feel as much like when we started rolling, like it was a kind of effort to, to slip into that reality.
12:44Like it felt like it was, it felt like we were all kind of, but from the moment you, you got on set, there was this, yeah, it was, that was protected and, and it wasn't, you know, it wasn't a jarring, it wasn't a jarring experience at all.
12:57Like kind of trying to will your, will your hypnotize yourself into believing things were real because they just, they felt real, but it didn't feel, it never felt like it was kind of encroaching on, on anyone else, anyone's.
13:10I mean, it was a brand new thing for you because obviously over the years you'd see me being a nutter here, there and everywhere, but from, you know, from a distance or from a little distance.
13:21Yeah.
13:22But your first time to actually be working together in that, in that way, I mean, I suppose, potentially, I never worried me that that might be a difficult thing for you to have to deal with.
13:40No, I mean, it was just, yeah, I think growing up and it had been such a, there had been such mystery to me around, around your work.
13:49And I mean, part of that was probably because of the way it, like the kind of mythic way it was talked about by other people, but also just my own experience of seeing, seeing you kind of disappear into that world.
14:01And then, you know, but, but so it was, it was fascinating to see it from, from, I guess, the other side of the curtain, but still retaining that, that mystery in some ways on set where it was, it wasn't, again, like the, the conversations we had had leading up to it meant that we could kind of work in a.
14:20Yeah, it takes the curse off it.
14:21I think it takes the curse off it, you know, and it's true that I think a lot of people, you know, you, you, you have to burn off preconceptions.
14:28Everyone has to, like on day one, everyone's nerves are in shreds and, you know, you're still getting to know each other, each other's rhythms, each other's way of working.
14:37Everyone has a way of working.
14:39It might be Method or Meisner or who gives a damn what, but, but you're going to form yourselves into a group of working colleagues all trying to do the same thing, essentially.
14:52Right.
14:52And that is one of the miracles, I think.
14:55I mean, I do think that films are minor miracles because, you know, take that disparate group of people from all different backgrounds, with all different expectations, different ways of working, and that they cohere in a, during a period of time into, into a working unit is an extraordinary thing.
15:14I mean, even to make a bad film, it's pretty hard.
15:17Yeah.
15:17And if you've got any hope of making a good film, you need that sense of cohesion and solidarity within the group.
15:28I think there's a lot of these images in the film that feel, feel like they point to something deeper than what's in the kind of the surface of the, of the, of the kind of the bare bones of the narrative that started to creep in pretty early on in the writing process.
15:46I remember that, and I remember, I think like once we, once we had the first instance of that, which was, I think Nessa kind of the visitation of like young Nessa floating in front of Ray's bed.
15:55And also the light road.
15:57And light.
15:57Remember the idea of light having a presence, like a condensing of light.
16:01Kind of a coalescing of light.
16:03Yeah.
16:03Exactly.
16:04Yeah.
16:04And that was like, that the light was this kind of unifying element between these two, these two worlds and, and this kind of, that the wet, also the weather, the sense of like the weather kind of pressing down on the, on the environment.
16:17And then the kind of presence of the landscape, in a way, it was kind of a, a pagan sensibility that was then overlaid onto, onto a story that, that ended up having a lot of, of, of, of Christian thought woven through it.
16:34Yeah.
16:34I think that like the pagan kind of feeling of it was there almost before we knew it, knew what the film was about.
16:41Well, we're both pagans basically, so that's not surprising.
16:44But then, yeah, there, all this kind of more Christian sort of Old Testament imagery started making its way in and, and I was looking at, as it does.
16:52Yeah.
16:53I was looking at that book, the book of miracles that I showed you, the like illuminated manuscript that had all those depictions of like blood rain and, and massive hail and these cosmic kind of events.
17:06Right. And the creature, which was already like a big feature of, of your life and therefore our life as well, had already found its way into, um, uh, a lot of your work as a painter.
17:22And, um, and it didn't feel like an imposition at all.
17:28No.
17:28I don't know how exactly.
17:30It felt like it would feel like an imposition, but yeah.
17:33I think it might have even occurred to me at one point.
17:35It did.
17:36I remember like I had had, it was this, it was this kind of strange moment where almost similar to the brother thing in the first place where I had been thinking about the creature appearing.
17:46Suddenly I just imagined it.
17:47I think originally I imagined it maybe by the river or something.
17:49And then it was, but I was kind of afraid to say it cause I didn't want to be, I didn't want it to feel like I was kind of incorrect, like forcing my own apology into, yeah.
17:59Product placement, yeah.
18:01Um, but then when you, you independently mentioned it as something that could happen.
18:06And I think, I think it was, that was what was exciting in general about the processes.
18:10I feel like we, we, we kept on kind of, I guess, freeing each other to, to just lean into those abstractions more as we, as we went further and further into it.
18:20And it was by the time we got to the end, it was like, or the kind of, you know, some of, some events that happened towards the end.
18:27It was, there was, there was just this like great.
18:30Well, it's a spiritual life that's invested in an image, isn't it?
18:34And, and, and the reason that that creature appeared to you and subsequently you laid that down into your work, um, as a painter was because it had already rooted in you as a significant spiritual element.
18:49And I think once, once, once a thing has that value, then it's, then it feels, you feel free to, to, to use it in any way that you wish.
19:05It doesn't feel as if it's, um, an interloper.
19:09And I think that was true of all the, um, the magical elements that occurred to us.
19:14Yeah. Yeah. And it became a challenge then to kind of describe, like convince other people of their, or, or kind of like, like explain, explain why they, why they had not only could exist in the film, but had to be part of that, that fabric.
19:29And so there was, yeah, it's because a lot of it, because it's so kind of intangible, I guess, those, those, those things were all, they have, as you said, just this kind of spiritual aspect to them that, that felt, felt like they came from,
19:44almost like there's, there's, there's an organized, there's like organized religion is a big part of the film, but then there's also this, this kind of, it's like the film's perspective isn't aligned with that.
19:54It's a kind of, there's almost this, like this omniscient perspective that's more aligned with the natural environment.
19:59And you, it's like you need help. It's like human being, like there's so much that you can do with human beings in, in, in the way in which they are, are not able to express themselves in a story.
20:12But it's almost like you need, you need help from elsewhere.
20:18You need help, you need help in, rather in the way that music is something that, that can inform a piece of work in ways that you, that, that you, you, you, you feel emotionally,
20:31but you're absolutely, you can't intellectualize about them or, or, or, um, identify exactly why that particular music is right in that particular, but also with those images that I think that they,
20:47the, the Jem and Ray needed those images to express the things they can't say.
20:54Yeah.
20:54In a way.
20:55Yeah.
20:55No, no, a hundred percent.
20:57A hundred percent.
20:58Yeah.
20:58I mean, cause I think also music in a film is already artifice.
21:02Like there's already that, like, like film as a medium, there's already, it's already not reality.
21:06It's like a different, so it, it feels like it actually, it felt like it's not a big leap to kind of, to use other, other kind of stranger devices to kind of, to, to heighten, heighten the, the subjectivity of it, I guess.
21:22Oh, Roden, what are your plans for the future?
21:29Do tell.
21:31I think, I, I feel like it's, it's such a miracle when you, two people find something that they're equally kind of excited about to spend that much of their lives kind of.
21:43So it's like, I, I, I think I would, I mean, I would love to do it again if we find that, you know, that, that seed.
21:50This isn't really the moment.
21:51Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, but no, it's, um, it's.
21:56I think some parts of us will be, always be looking, even if we find that.
22:00No, but I hope we do.
22:02Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I hope so.
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