Daniel Day-Lewis, the Academy Award-winning star of films like Gangs of New York, Phantom Thread, and The Last of the Mohicans, has addressed Brian Cox’s harsh comments about method acting. Years ago, Cox criticized Succession co-star Jeremy Strong for his decision to go for method acting when shooting the HBO series, saying that his co-star was “Dan Day-Lewis’ assistant. So he’s learned all that stuff from Dan.” Now, Day-Lewis has stood up to Cox, saying that he’s available whenever Cox wants to talk to him about it.
Speaking to Big Issue, the Lincoln actor resurfaced the conversation about method acting, and how the media twists the facts about the technique he’s known to use in order to prepare for his roles. Day-Lewis also talks about Cox’s past comments and while he praises him (and Strong) for their work, he believes he was unnecessarily pulled into the discussion:
“I worked with Brian Cox once and got somehow drawn into this handbags-at-dawn conflict inadvertently. 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.
“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 f*ck 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.”
Daniel Day-Lewis Is a Method Acting Legend
If there is an actor with enough of an authority to address method acting and blast colleagues who are brave enough to criticize him, that’s Daniel Day-Lewis. Though his method remains quite controversial, it has worked for him in the past. The 68-year-old actor is considered one of the finest performers in cinema history, and has won countless awards, including three Academy Awards in the Best Actor category (he has been nominated a total of seven times). The first Oscar was for the 1990 biopic My Left Foot, the second in 2008 for There Will Be Blood, and the third in 2013 for Lincoln.
When talking to Big Issue, he makes something clear about his technique. He says people are not getting method acting and focus on the more extreme parts of it, instead of observing the basics of why it actually works:
“They focus on, ‘Oh, he lived in a jail cell for six months’ [for the 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.
“So it pisses me off this whole ‘Oh, he went full method’ thing. What the f*ck, 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.”
- Birthname
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Daniel Michael Blake Day-Lewis
- Birthdate
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April 29, 1957
- Birthplace
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Greenwich, London, England, UK
This story originally appeared on Movieweb
