Ronan Day-Lewis Knows What You’re Thinking

Ronan Day-Lewis, the 27-year old filmmaker, painter, and son of three-time Oscar winner Daniel, has had a whirlwind year. Earlier this month, he opened a solo exhibition of his paintings at Megan Mulrooney in West Hollywood. All the while, he was putting the finishing touches on his debut feature (and driving his colorist mad in the process). For Anemone, Day-Lewis wrangled his father, who co-wrote the script, out of yet another self-proclaimed retirement, but it wasn’t just the sheer force of nepotism that helped him get the movie made. “I had this idea of wanting to do something about two brothers for a while, and then it turned out that he also wanted to do something around brotherhood,” Day-Lewis told us. “That was serendipitous, us both having that same preoccupation.”

Anemone, which premiered at New York Film Festival last week, tells the story of two estranged brothers set against the fraught backdrop of The Troubles, a decades-long period of violent sectarian conflict in Northern Ireland. For those anticipating another nepo-baby passion project, the film lands a tense and artful gut punch. Motifs from Day-Lewis’s paintings float thoughtfully through the movie like surrealist touchstones: cave etchings, a gigantic troutfish, and one luminous, ambiguous creature that has appeared consistently throughout his body of work. The soundtrack is another highlight, with gauzy, pedal-heavy shoegaze mirroring the film’s emotionally taught atmosphere. As he told me at his Ridgewood studio last month, Day-Lewis ended up in a “shoegaze rabbit hole” while prepping for the film, hyperfixating on a playlist of almost 400 songs (which we managed to get our hands on, below). Greeting me warmly in a battered t-shirt and a Casio watch, Day-Lewis is almost disarmingly down-to-earth and attuned to his good fortune. “I know how many people would kill to have this chance to make a film,” he confessed. “I’m so insanely grateful.”

———

EMILY SANDSTROM: I’m so excited to talk to you about the music in Anemone. I’m saying it right, right?

RONAN DAY-LEWIS: Yeah, you are. I know, I chose the worst possible title to pronounce.

SANDSTROM: Does it have anything to do with The Brian Jonestown Massacre song?

DAY-LEWIS: That’s actually how I came to the name! 

SANDSTROM: Oh, nice. I’m a huge Anton Newcombe fan, but I don’t think I’ve ever said that name out loud.

DAY-LEWIS: I listened to him so much leading up to the film. 

SANDSTROM: The music is so great in it. Did you go in with a specific vision? It’s very shoegaze-y and heavy.

DAY-LEWIS: I was listening to so much shoegaze leading up to making it, since it’s set in the mid-’90s and it has this kind of ethereal quality to it. What I like about shoegaze is that it has all about these buried vocals underneath these walls of sound. The film is so much about repressed emotion, but it has this hypermasculinity in it. But the almost feminine quality of those vocals are almost a way to temper that and also inject Nessa’s presence into the brother’s story. [Waiter approaches table] Hi, how’s it going?

SANDSTROM: Hi, how are you?

WAITER: How are you guys?

SANDSTROM: Good, thank you. Could I grab a drip coffee and a Diet Coke?

DAY-LEWIS: I’d love an iced latte, please.

WAITER: Sure. Regular milk?

DAY-LEWIS: Yeah, thank you so much.

SANDSTROM: The music gave it a really stunning depth. Did you grow up listening to that stuff?

DAY-LEWIS: Not really. My friends in high school were obsessed with Loveless, but I didn’t really know that much about shoegaze. Another friend introduced me to Slowdive a few years ago and I was just like, “Oh, holy shit.” So I just started kind of going deeper and deeper into this wormhole. I had this really long playlist that I was listening to constantly for the film, and shoegaze just ended up worming its way into the way I thought about the film thematically. 

DAY-LEWIS: I actually played some of these songs for the heads of department to help everyone understand the tone. 

SANDSTROM: The sound system they have in that screening room–

DAY-LEWIS: Was it good?

SANDSTROM: It was awesome. I was having the time of my life.

DAY-LEWIS: Was the hail loud?

SANDSTROM: Yeah, it was insanely loud. I really liked that scene, it felt very much like a music video. Also, her facial expressions are insane.

DAY-LEWIS: Oh yeah, Sam Morton is amazing. I saw her in Morvern Callar and I was just like… Wow. 

SANDSTROM: I love that movie.

DAY-LEWIS: It’s one of my favorites. There’s just this almost animal kind of intensity in her presence that’s mesmerizing. Once I started thinking about Samantha Morton in that part, I couldn’t think about anyone else for it. I was so relieved when she wanted to do it. 

SANDSTROM: Well I have to ask, what’s it like being Daniel Day-Lewis’ son? That seems like a lot. 

DAY-LEWIS: [Laughs] Honestly, he made it really not a lot growing up. My parents were really great about protecting me and my brothers from the craziness. 

SANDSTROM: You don’t really seem like Daniel Day-Lewis’ son. 

DAY-LEWIS: That’s good to hear. There was a certain age where kids at school started to look at me differently. Their parents would maybe tell them about his films and they’d start talking about it. There’s definitely a moment I remember where I started to become a bit self-conscious. But most of my early memories were great because I got to go with my parents for a couple of the films they made. We lived on Prince Edward Island for a couple months when they were making The Ballad of Jack and Rose together.

SANDSTROM: Oh, nice. 

DAY-LEWIS: I was super young, so I didn’t really know what was going on, but seeing the sense of make-believe and this world that they were creating was so intoxicating. And for There Will Be Blood, we also lived in Marfa, Texas for a couple months, which was amazing. I think that started my obsession with the desert and with the American West.

SANDSTROM: With nepotism being such a hot topic now, does it feel like there’s a bit of a spotlight on you?

DAY-LEWIS: Well, when we first started writing the film, we weren’t even sure that it would turn into anything. Once we had 70 pages it felt like, “This is actually going to be a feature script.” And then it was like, “Oh, shit, what are the implications of us actually doing this?” I definitely had reservations at first, given the nepotism aspect of it. But I ended up feeling like, if I hadn’t done this, in 10 years I would look back and think, “How did you not take this opportunity to make something with your dad in this way?” It was such a cosmically beautiful experience to be able to have together. I know how many people would kill to have this chance to make a film. I’m so insanely grateful. 

SANDSTROM: Also, I just found out a few hours ago that Arthur Miller is your grandfather. That’s very cool.

DAY-LEWIS: Pretty cool, yeah. He died when I was six, but I do have really great memories of him.

SANDSTROM: Interestingly, one of the first notes I wrote down during the movie was that the dialogue seemed fit for theatre, especially at the beginning. Have you heard that before?

DAY-LEWIS: Yeah. Actually, pretty early on we both noticed that it had this theatrical quality. I felt like I wanted to lean into that in some ways and then also kind of resist it in others. Originally, we had this idea that it was going to take place in the hut and the surrounding areas, and that would’ve felt extremely play-like.

SANDSTROM: How did you and your dad start talking about this script more seriously, and what was it like to write it together? 

DAY-LEWIS: Independently, I had this idea of wanting to do something about two brothers for a while, and then it turned out that he also wanted to do something around brotherhood. That was serendipitous, us both having that same preoccupation. We just started bouncing ideas around about a man living in a state of self-banishment in the middle of the woods. That came to us without knowing why he was even in that state. We wrote the first 10 pages of the reunion, when Jem shows up at the cabin, and from that point it felt like we had the seed of something there. 

SANDSTROM: How did you two block off time to write together? Were you like, “I’m coming over”?

DAY-LEWIS: As it got closer to the end of the process it became like that. Early on we were way less disciplined, honestly. We started writing it together when we were just in the same place for a while, but then we would have long periods of time where we were apart. I’d be like, “Should we sit down and just see if we can get a few more pages?” So it was in drips and drabs over a few years. 

SANDSTROM: What year did it start?

DAY-LEWIS: 2020.

SANDSTROM: So it’s been a minute. 

DAY-LEWIS: Yeah. And for a long time, it was just a little chunk at a time, and we weren’t even sure if it would really materialize into anything. 

SANDSTROM: Did you know that your dad was going to star in the movie from its inception? 

DAY-LEWIS: I always felt like if we did end up doing it that he would be Ray. But it wasn’t a sure thing that he would do it until we actually had a script. At that point, I was pretty surprised at how eager he was to do it. 

SANDSTROM: Did you guys ever fight? 

DAY-LEWIS: There was definitely an adjustment period to that constant negotiation, down to the smallest details of the environments and the scenes. It kind of just came down to who felt stronger about something. There would be times where we disagreed about something but honestly, it always felt pretty low-pressure. It never got too intense.

SANDSTROM: Did he let you really take the lead or did he interject?

DAY-LEWIS: No, not at all, actually. He was amazing. In the writing process we did a lot of improvisation and we got to know the character together super deeply. So by the time we were on set, there was actually very little talking we needed to do. I think if it had been any other young director trying to work with him, they’d be intimidated. But obviously I had the benefit of having written it with him—and also him being my dad. I wanted to make sure to give him the space he needed and to know when to shut up. But he was always really open to feedback.

SANDSTROM: That’s so nice. At what point did you decide to set it against The Troubles?

DAY-LEWIS: The Troubles didn’t come in immediately, actually. We knew that the character had been involved in conflict that was connected to his self-banishment, but we weren’t sure what. I guess it happened pretty organically. I had learned about The Troubles growing up in Ireland and it loomed large in my imagination ever since. Since we knew early on that the character was going to be northern English, it just started to slowly fall into place. Organically, different details of his history solidified.

SANDSTROM: The Troubles are kind of trendy now in American literature.

DAY-LEWIS: There’s an obsession with Ireland in general I’ve noticed in the States. There’s something in it that connects to brotherhood that felt relevant, maybe subconsciously. 

SANDSTROM: There seems like a lot of weather control going on in the film, which is really beautiful. Did that happen in post-production?

DAY-LEWIS: It’s actually a mix. The island that we shot it on was Anglesey, off the coast of Wales. It’s beautiful, but it’s a really windswept and stark place. There was actually a ton of real wind and crazy currents coming through the sand when they’re walking down after that big confessional scene.

SANDSTROM: Oh, woah. I thought that was special effects because of the way it ripples in.

DAY-LEWIS: I know. It actually got to the point where we showed up that day to shoot that actual dialogue scene and it was so windy that sand was being flung in our faces. We couldn’t even get audio on the actual beach, so we ended up shooting the actual meat of the scene on the adjoining beach. But for that last shot where they walk away, we went back to the windy beach and there was that crazy kind of liquid ocean of wind traveling down the sand. And then, for instance, the aerial shot in the beginning where the wind ripples through the foliage of the trees was real, and we were lucky to actually get that.

SANDSTROM: Let’s talk about the exhibition. Did you study painting in school?

DAY-LEWIS: Yeah, I studied painting in school, but I’ve been really obsessed with making films since I was a kid.  I was making short films and stuff through high school, and then in college and making music videos and shorts and stuff.

SANDSTROM: What kind of shorts were you making?

DAY-LEWIS: For a long time in high school I was obsessed with horror. That was all I watched.

SANDSTROM: Oh, wow. Tell me your five favorite horror films.

DAY-LEWIS: [Laughs] I feel like if I didn’t say Rosemary’s Baby, that would be a problem.

SANDSTROM: Fair, fair.

DAY-LEWIS: Don’t Look Now, I love. Honestly, I think Midsommar should be up there. What else? I don’t know if it’s one of the best but I really like this film called Let’s Scare Jessica to Death.

SANDSTROM: Oh, I love that film. It’s a special one.

DAY-LEWIS: There’s something really charming about it. What else? Let me think. I saw Alien at a sleepover when I was like 11 and I think that really me set me off into this horror vibe. Was that five?

SANDSTROM: Yes. Okay, back to your paintings.

DAY-LEWIS: Yes, let me show you. 

SANDSTROM: Wait, the Drop Nineteens?

DAY-LEWIS: The Drop Nineteens! You’ve recognized that.

SANDSTROM: Yeah. I love that album art so much. 

DAY-LEWIS: It’s amazing, right?

SANDSTROM: I don’t know anything about that image though. 

DAY-LEWIS: Well, I looked into it because I was so intrigued. I guess she just wasn’t actually connected to the band; she was just a local kid that they took a photo of. You know that song “Kick the Tragedy”?

SANDSTROM: Yeah, with the long monologue?

DAY-LEWIS: Yeah, well I assumed that was her. I listened to that song so much in preparation for the film. And then this. 

SANDSTROM: Wow, I forgot about the ginormous, gorgeous fish. There’s a lot of movie and painting references intertwined. 

DAY-LEWIS: Yeah. I wanted to paint the fish for a while and I wasn’t sure if it could kind of co-exist with the other images in the show. And then I just was like, “Fuck it.” It felt like it kind of had some relationship with the girl with the gun painting for some reason. 

SANDSTROM: The beast figure also makes an appearance in both the film and paintings. You also made a wax model of it. Where did it come from? 

DAY-LEWIS:  I was in this class in college, and we were doing these charcoal drawings on the floor, like stream of consciousness stuff. It kind of came out of nowhere, but it just felt correct in some weird way. The rest of the figure just started to suggest itself over the next couple years and it started kind of haunting all my paintings. 

SANDSTROM: How did it make its way into Anemone? 

DAY-LEWIS: I had the idea for a while, but I was almost embarrassed to say it. I didn’t want it to feel forced, but it also felt like it could exist on the sidelines of this world that we were creating. We had already started to push the boundaries of having the film lean into this dreamlike intensity and these departures from reality. And it turned out that my dad had  independently had the same thought that it could appear. He’s the one who actually said it out loud first. 

SANDSTROM: So it’s like you guys shared a dream or something?

DAY-LEWIS: Yeah. It was strange. And then it was about trying to figure out how it could appear. At first it was a really unconscious thing, and then we started to understand what it meant to Ray and what it meant to the film thematically. It sort of just crept in, similar to how it crept into the paintings. 

SANDSTROM: A lot of the paintings focus on American tragedy. What’s fascinating about that for you in particular?

DAY-LEWIS: I think having grown up in Ireland, when I moved back to the States I had this slightly outsider feeling and almost a fascination with America. Those couple of months in Texas as a kid [during the filming of There Will Be Blood] left me with this obsession with those open spaces and landscapes, and I had romanticized the idea of them. But there’s also something really sad to me about the emptiness, and that kind of wormed its way into the paintings. I was thinking about how Paris, Texas is one of the most American films you could think of but it’s made by Wim Wenders. There’s this outsider’s perspective, and you can kind of feel that in the romanticization of the landscape. I was thinking almost the opposite way for the film, projecting this American sensibility onto a very different setting.

SANDSTROM: Right. There’s also something so cold about the paintings. Obviously the color tones but also the scenes themselves are lonely and despondent. 

DAY-LEWIS: I’m definitely drawn to melancholic images, but it also feels like a compositional thing. When I’m working on a painting, usually there’s a period where it just feels way too loud. Then I’m kind of paring it down, working everything in, filling areas out, and it gets quieter. It tends to feel right to me when it feels almost silent.  People often say that the paintings have a peaceful quality, which is interesting because they often depict pretty creepy or negative things. But I’ve always been interested in this feeling of alienation. 

SANDSTROM: Nice.

DAY-LEWIS: As it relates to painting, the color grade was a really interesting process. It was really hard as a painter to let go. I would get so fixated on certain color palettes within a shot, or the color of a single thing. I was driving the colorist a little crazy. We went through this really meticulous process of finding this perfect green because it’s such an important color in the film. 

SANDSTROM: What is it like having the film and exhibition coming out at the same time? Does it feel like one is eclipsing the other? 

DAY-LEWIS: There were definitely times where I questioned my sanity for going through with doing the show at the same time, but I’m really glad the timing worked out like this. I think otherwise, the film might have eclipsed my work as a painter.