Ronan Day-Lewis was just seven when he first saw his father disappear into character on the sun-bleached set, in Marfa, Texas, of There Will Be Blood (2007).But even witnessing Daniel Plainview in full milkshake-sucking mode did not prepare him for the raw, intimate challenge of directing Daniel Day-Lewis nearly two decades later, in his own haunting feature debut, Anemone. “My dad’s work had always been behind a curtain in a way for me,” says Ronan, 27. “So it was a really unique experience to see that happen from such a front-row seat.” Shot over several months on the blustery Welsh island of Anglesey—doubling for Yorkshire—Anemone follows Ray Stoker, a former British soldier and veteran of Northern Ireland’s Troubles, living off the grid in a makeshift cabin deep in the woods in the 1990s. At first, Daniel wasn’t sure if he wanted to play the part of Ray or his devout elder brother, Jem, who travels from their native Sheffield in an attempt to persuade Ray to come home after a long absence. “For him it was a more gradual process of becoming beguiled by the character of Ray,” Ronan says. “But I always assumed that was him.” To play Jem, Ronan cast Sean Bean (Game of Thrones). “He’s so watchful, he’s always kind of prodding, and there’s always this slight danger that he is going to go too far and that Ray will snap.” —Tobias Grey