Day-Lewis retirement "only research for role as retiree"

Daniel Day-Lewis is to retire from acting in order to prepare for a forthcoming role in Paul Thomas Anderson's The Retiree.

Director Anderson confirmed the arrangement in a press release to announce The Retiree's 2020 release date.

"Daniel is retiring from acting with immediate effect in order to immerse himself in the character of Jeremy Wren, who is forced to retire from his job at British Gas," he said.

Day-Lewis will spend the next three years walking the dog twice a day, going to Homebase, becoming overly interested in the positioning of his neighbours' bins, and falling asleep in front of the golf.

His wife Rebecca Miller has agreed to help out by regularly encouraging him to come to her ballroom dancing classes, and nagging him to fix the gutter on the shed roof because the run-off always drips on you when you go in the back gate, which Day-Lewis will resist in order to maintain character.

"We're all excited for the film and delighted that Daniel is preparing for it so thoroughly," Anderson went on.

"Snag is, he's had to retire so he can live as a retiree in order to play the role properly, but in order to actually act in the film he'd need to come out of retirement.

"And because he'll still be in character when that point comes, he won't do it, because it's not what the character would do, because the character is retired.

"So we're fucked really."