Ronan Day-Lewis reveals a trick he used with his father Daniel Day-Lewis on Anemone

Ronan Day-Lewis had one neat little trick while directing his father Daniel Day-Lewis, in his directorial debut, Anemone, and it definitely added to the film's premise and helped build a professional bond between the Lewises. The film, co-written by Daniel himself along with Ronan, is bringing the star back after his 2017 retirement. And what better way to mark a return to the big screen than to work on his son's filmmaking debut.

The collaboration has sparked numerous conversations among the public, who have waited for the Phantom Thread star's return to the big screen. Lewis is playing Ray Stoker, a hermit, in the story that's being marketed as a psychological drama.

In an interview with Variety, Ronan Day-Lewis opened up on directing his father, and how he called him by his character's name because it was "intuitive" as he told the outlet,

“It was intuitive that everyone called him Ray on set, and I did too. But obviously I was also seeing him all the time offset, and that would have been a bit weird if I was calling him Ray then. It was Dad offset, always Dad.”

He then continued to talk about how the duo collaborated on the screenwriting process for the film, as he added,

“We did an outline first. Then we worked in fits and burst. We would only write when we were in the same place, and we’d often be in different locations for long periods of time, which gave us distance from it. So by the time we came back together, the appetite built up again, and we could push the characters a little bit further into the dark.”

More details about Anemone

Anemone made its debut at the New York Film Festival on September 28, and is all set to make it's U.S. premiere on October 3. Filmed in Manchester, England from October 2024, the film is a deeply personal exploration of familial relations, brotherhood and generational trauma.

According to IMDB, the film's synopsis reads,

In Northern England, a man heads out on a journey into the woods to reconnect with the estranged hermit brother with whom he shared a complicated past that was altered by life-changing events decades ago.

Anemone was, according to Ronan Day-Lewis, his father's idea, as he suggested that the duo should find something they could work on together. As they toyed with the idea of brotherhood and its archetype, Anemone was born, and the rest is history.

The film dives into the tangled bonds of a fractured family, blending raw emotion with the setting's haunting landscapes. Lewis stars as Ray Stoker, joined by his brother Jem Stoker, played by Sean Bean, Samantha Morton as Nessa Stoker, Samuel Bottomley as Brian, and Safia Oakley-Green as Hattie.