Daniel Day-Lewis ‘Really Grateful’ He Found His ‘Appetite’ for Acting Again

Daniel Day-Lewis has a renewed passion for acting.

The three-time Academy Award winner makes his return to the big screen with Anemone, the upcoming psychological drama he co-wrote with son Ronan Day-Lewis, who also makes his directorial debut with the film.

During a press conference at the 63rd New York Film Festival on Friday, Sept. 26, Day-Lewis said he was “grateful for a chance to talk about” coming back to acting after an eight-year hiatus, as when it comes to retirement, “You’re meant to just crawl away and die quietly.”

But in his case, “I was at very low ebb and I thought, ‘I’m doing this because I [didn’t] really expect to find my way back to the appetite for this work again,’ ” Day-Lewis, 68, said. “And I did.”

“And I’m really grateful for it. I hope I do again,” he added.

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Anemone is Day-Lewis’ first movie role since 2017’s Phantom Thread. According to an official synopsis, the film deals with familial issues: “Family bonds between fathers, sons and brothers are explored as complex relationships unfold through personal journeys and generational conflicts.”

The Lincoln star previously announced his retirement from acting in June 2017, with his rep Leslee Dart telling PEOPLE at the time, “Daniel Day-Lewis will no longer be working as an actor.”

“He is immensely grateful to all of his collaborators and audiences over the many years,” Dart’s statement continued. “This is a private decision and neither he nor his representatives will make any further comment on this subject.”

During the press conference on Friday, Day-Lewis admitted that he “made a f—ing fool of myself by announcing that I was going to stop working, and probably a bigger fool of myself coming back.”

“But to deny myself the possibility of working with Ronan just to stand on my pride, I think that would’ve been probably a worse decision than just, well, I said that, so I’m sticking to it,” he said of his son, whom he shares with wife Rebecca Miller.

Speaking with PEOPLE during Anemone‘s world premiere at the NYFF on Sunday, Sept. 28, Day-Lewis admitted that while working on the movie, the off-screen family dynamics between him and Ronan, 27, didn’t occupy much space in his mind.

When asked if it was ever odd to have his son directing him, the actor said, “Well if I stepped outside of it to look in that way, yeah, I definitely would’ve probably been stopped in my tracks.”

“But luckily,” Day-Lewis continued, “we were both so inside of the work, inside the story that we were trying to tell.”

“There were days on set that we looked at each other and just couldn’t believe that we were actually getting to do this thing, but other than that we were just getting on with it,” the actor said, adding that “there wasn’t time to think that way, luckily.”

Anemone is in theaters Friday, Oct. 3.