Much ado has been made about method acting in recent years, also known simply as the Method, and three-time Best Actor Oscar winner Daniel Day-Lewis would very much like to no longer be in the conversation.
The There Will Be Blood actor recently lamented being “drawn into this handbags-at-dawn conflict inadvertently” after having worked with Brian Cox on 1997’s The Boxer, as the latter has often decried his Succession co-star Jeremy Strong’s approach to immersive performance. Given Day-Lewis’s well-known reputation for embracing the Method and Strong’s previous role as his assistant on 1989’s My Left Foot, Day-Lewis said he’s been unwittingly absorbed into the drama.
“Brian is a very fine actor who’s done extraordinary work. As a result, he’s been given a soapbox … which he shows no sign of climbing down from. Any time he wants to talk about it, I’m easy to find,” he told The Big Issue. “If I thought during our work together I’d interfered with his working process, I’d be appalled. But I don’t think it was like that. So I don’t know where the fuck that came from. Jeremy Strong is a very fine actor, I don’t know how he goes about things, but I don’t feel responsible in any way for that.”
Elsewhere, Day-Lewis reiterated his distaste for the misrepresentation of method acting, having previously defended the approach last month and throughout recent press appearances.
“They focus on, ‘Oh, he lived in a jail cell for six months’ [for 1993 film In the Name of the Father]. Those are the least important details. In all the performing arts, people find their methods as a means to an end. It’s with the intention of freeing yourself so you present your colleagues with a living, breathing human being they can interact with. It’s very simple,” he said, adding, “So it pisses me off this whole ‘oh, he went full method’ thing. What the fuck, you know? Because it’s invariably attached to the idea of some kind of lunacy.”
“I choose to stay and splash around, rather than jump in and out or play practical jokes with whoopee cushions between takes or whatever people think is how you should behave as an actor,” he concluded.
Day-Lewis has been recently making the rounds for his turn in Anemone, the debut feature from his son, filmmaker Ronan Day-Lewis. The role marked a return to the silver screen for the semi-retired actor, who last starred in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Phantom Thread in 2017. Since then, he has described his previous characterization of the time off as “grandiose gibberish.“
“I never intended to retire, really. I just stopped doing that particular type of work so I could do some other work. Apparently, I’ve been accused of retiring twice now. I never meant to retire from anything! I just wanted to work on something else for a while,” he said.
The post Daniel Day-Lewis Begrudges Getting “Drawn Into” Method Acting Debate Because Of Brian Cox: “Handbags-At-Dawn Conflict” appeared first on Deadline.
