Daniel Day-Lewis is calling out Brian Cox for dragging him into a “conflict” surrounding method acting.
During a recent interview with the U.K.’s Big Issue, the three-time Oscar winner shared his thoughts on being brought into the disagreement between Cox and Jeremy Strong over the controversial acting technique.
During their time working on the Emmy-winning series Succession, Cox previously criticized Strong’s intense acting style for his role as Kendall Roy, saying it’s “not good for the ensemble” and “creates hostility” with other castmembers. He also claimed that Day-Lewis influenced Strong’s method acting style when the pair worked together on 2005’s The Ballad of Jack and Rose and 2012’s Lincoln.
“Listen, I worked with Brian Cox once and got somehow drawn into this handbags-at-dawn conflict inadvertently,” Day-Lewis said, referring to when they both starred in 1997’s The Boxer. “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.”
The Anemone star continued, “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.”
Day-Lewis went on to praise Strong, adding that he’s “a very fine actor, I don’t know how he goes about things, but I don’t feel responsible in any way for that.”
Throughout his career, the There Will Be Blood actor has been known to fully immerse himself in a character throughout filming. And while some in Hollywood have criticized the acting approach, Day-Lewis has maintained that it “makes sense” to him. Earlier this month at the 69th edition of the BFI London Film Festival, he described it as “a way of freeing yourself [for] the spontaneity when you are working with your colleagues in front of the camera, so that you are free to respond in any way that you’re moved to in that moment.”
Day-Lewis continued to double down on method acting during his chat with the Big Issue, saying he doesn’t “like it being misrepresented to the extent it has been.”
“They focus on, ‘Oh, he lived in a jail cell for six months’ [for 1993’s 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 continued. “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.”
The actor added, “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.”
