NYFF 2025 Exclusive: Director Ronan Day-Lewis and Sean Bean on working with Daniel Day-Lewis in Anemone
Hitting Select Theaters on Friday, October 3rd from Focus Features is Anemone, directed by Ronan Day-Lewis and starring Daniel Day-Lewis, Sean Bean, Samantha Morton and Samuel Bottomley.
Three-time Oscar winner Daniel Day-Lewis roars back to the screen for his first role in eight years in this absorbing family drama directed by Ronan Day-Lewis about lives undone by seemingly irreconcilable legacies of political and personal violence.
Co-written by father and son, the Northern England–set Anemone begins as a middle-aged man (Sean Bean) sets out from his suburban home on a journey into the woods, where he reconnects with his estranged hermit brother (Day-Lewis). Bonded by a mysterious, complicated past, the men share a fraught, if occasionally tender relationship—one that was forever altered by shattering events decades earlier.
Producers are Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner (Moonlight, The Big Short, 12 Years a Slave, Nickel Boys). Director of photography is Ben Fordesman (Saint Maud, “The End of the F***ing World”). Production designer is Chris Oddy (The Zone of Interest, Under the Skin). Costume designer is Jane Petrie (“The Crown,” “Black Mirror”). The film is edited by Nathan Nugent (Room, The Novice). Composer is Bobby Krlic (Midsommar, Eddington.)
Day-Lewis is a Brooklyn-based painter and filmmaker whose work has been exhibited extensively and internationally. Graduating from Yale University with a BA in Art in 2020, he has had solo exhibitions at D. D. D. D. Gallery, New York; Woaw Gallery, Hong Kong; and his exhibition at Megan Mulrooney Gallery is currently on view in Los Angeles, marking his west coast solo debut. Anemone marks Day-Lewis’s feature directorial debut.
Bean is beloved by audiences worldwide for iconic performances as the title character in the long-running U.K. series “Sharpe” (1993 to 2008), Boromir in Peter Jackson’s feature The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) and Ned Stark in the HBO series “Game of Thrones” (2011).
Blackfilmandtv.com's Wilson Morales talks to director Ronan Day-Lewis and Sean Bean on Anemone
