Oscar-winning actor Sir Daniel Day-Lewis has made it clear exactly how the misrepresentation of his method acting makes him feel.
Speaking frankly in a new interview, the movie star admitted that it ‘p****s [him] off’, as it is ‘invariably attached to the idea of some kind of lunacy’.
Sir Daniel, 68, is known for using method techniques that focus on psychological and physical immersion, having lived in isolation, refused to wash, and even lost extreme amounts of weight for his jobs in the past.
For example, he’s said to have lived in a tent on a deserted Texan oil field during the making of There Will Be Blood (2007), in which he played a ruthless oil prospector in pursuit of becoming a powerful tycoon.
He’s also believed to have spent two or three days in a prison cell without food or water to play Guildford Four member Gerry Conlon for the film In The Name Of The Father (1993).
Speaking of the lengths he’s gone to for his roles, he told the Big Issue: ‘I just don’t like it being misrepresented to the extent it has been.
‘I can’t think of a single commentator who’s gobbed off about the method that has any understanding of how it works and the intention behind it.
‘They focus on, “Oh, he lived in a jail cell for six months.” Those are the least important details.’
He added that ‘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 p****s me off, this whole, “Oh, he went full method” thing. What the f**k, you know? Because it’s invariably attached to the idea of some kind of lunacy.’
The London-born star went on to say that he ‘chooses 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’.
In 2023, Succession actor Brian Cox criticised the use of method acting by his co-star Jeremy Strong and added: ‘Of course, Jeremy was Dan Day-Lewis’s assistant. So he’s learned all that stuff from Dan.’
Sir Daniel responded to his remark: ‘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**k that came from.’
He called Strong, 46, ‘a very fine actor’, and while he doesn’t know how the Emmy winner ‘goes about things’, he confidently ‘doesn’t feel responsible in any way’.
Strong himself said in 2021 that he doesn’t consider himself a method actor, but added to The New Yorker about his approach: ‘I think you have to go through whatever the ordeal is that the character has to go through.’
Throughout his career, the lengths he’s gone to include asking to be sprayed with real tear gas for The Trial of the Chicago 7 (2020).
Method acting isn’t limited only to Sir Daniel and Strong, of course, as plenty of screen stars have gone that extra mile to get into character in cinematic history.
Well-known examples include Christian Bale losing nearly 70Ibs and depriving himself of sleep for his insomniac role in The Machinist (2004) and Heath Ledger locking himself away from society for a month to dive into his Joker character.
More recently, Austin Butler has been a hot topic of conversation for how he didn’t see his family for three years while playing Elvis Presley in Baz Luhrmann’s biopic. He also spoke in the performer’s accent the whole time, making it hard to shake afterwards.
As for Sir Daniel, the actor’s career has seen him bag three best actor Oscars, in 1990 for playing wheelchair-bound Christy Brown in My Left Foot, in 2008 for playing oilman Daniel Plainview in There Will Be Blood, and in 2013 for his portrayal of the former US president in Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln.
He recently made a return to acting to star in the psychological drama Anemone, which was the first feature film from his director son, Ronan Day-Lewis.
In 2017, a statement from Sir Daniel’s representative said the actor—also known for his powerful performance as Hawkeye in Michael Mann’s 1992 epic The Last Of The Mohicans—had retired from acting.
Fears this was a permanent move were created by what he now calls an ‘ill-advised statement’.
‘Daniel Day-Lewis will no longer be working as an actor,’ it read at the time.
Read the full interview with Daniel Day-Lewis in this week’s Big Issue, out now.
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