‘Phantom Thread’ made Day-Lewis say ‘Enough’
Three-time Oscar winner insists he’s serious this time
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 the movie. And then we stopped laughing because we were both overwhelmed by a sense of sadness. That took us by surprise: We didn't realize what we had given birth to. It was hard to live with. And still is."
Over the summer, DayLewis'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.
But now Day-Lewis is giving us a few more (admittedly vague) details about why he's leaving. According to the interview, he flirted with the idea of quitting for a long time. That's partly why he took so many lengthy breaks between making movies. But ultimately another director or project would reel him back in for another round of method acting brilliance.
Day-Lewis is famously private so releasing a statement felt like an unusual move, but he had his motivations. Like a Whole 30 dieter posting progress on Facebook, he just wanted to hold himself accountable.
"I did want to draw a line," he said. "I didn't want to get sucked back into another project. All my life, I've mouthed off about how I should stop acting, and I don't know why it was different this time, but the impulse to quit took root in me, and that became a compulsion. It was something I had to do."
There's an embargo on reviewing "Phantom Thread" until next week, but suffice it to say that the drama is a strange, engross-