Copyright Variety
Daniel Day-Lewis recently told the U.K.’s Big Issue that Brian Cox is one of the reasons he’s been dragged into an unwanted debate around Method acting. Cox has spoken out against Method acting in various interviews over the last few years, frequently citing his “Succession” co-star Jeremy Strong as an example of why the acting style is “fucking annoying.” Cox once speculated that Day-Lewis had to break from acting at 55 years old due to the burn out of being a Method actor, saying Day-Lewis “couldn’t go on doing that every day.” “Listen, I worked with Brian Cox once and got somehow drawn into this handbags-at-dawn conflict inadvertently,” Day-Lewis now told Big Issue (via The Telegraph). “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.” In an interview with Variety, Cox even floated a connection between Jeremy Strong’s Method acting and Daniel Day-Lewis since “Jeremy was Day-Lewis’ assistant. So he’s learned all that stuff from Dan.” But Day-Lewis does not agree. “If I thought during our work together I’d interfered with his working process, I’d be appalled,” Day-Lewis told Big Issue. “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.” “I just don’t like it being misrepresented to the extent it has been,” Day-Lewis continued about Method acting. “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. In all the performing arts, people find their methods as a means to an end.” Day-Lewis stressed that Method acting is simply about “freeing yourself so you present your colleagues with a living, breathing human being they can interact with,” adding: “It’s very simple. 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.” Strong appeared on the cover of GQ magazine in February 2023 and directly addressed Cox’s comments about his Method acting. Strong said he hadn’t spoken directly with Cox or any of his other “Succession” co-stars about all the headlines his Method acting creates. “Everyone’s entitled to have their feelings,” Strong said. “I also think Brian Cox, for example, he’s earned the right to say whatever the fuck he wants. There was no need to address that or do damage control… I feel a lot of love for my siblings and my father on the show. And it is like a family in the sense that — and I’m sure they would say this, too — you don’t always like the people that you love. I do always respect them.” Through all of the complaints about his Method acting, Strong told GQ never once considered changing his approach. “Am I going to adjust or compromise the way that I’ve worked my whole life and what I believe in? There wasn’t a flicker of doubt about that,” Strong said. “I’m still going to do whatever it takes to serve whatever it is. Which is not to say that that is the same thing as riding roughshod over other people. It has to do with autonomous concentration. It’s a very solitary thing. I think there’s very low impact on others except for what they might want to project onto it and how that might make them feel.” As for Day-Lewis, the three-time Oscar winner has been making the press rounds in support of his new movie “Anemone.” The film marks Day-Lewis’ return to acting after an extended hiatus following 2017’s “Phantom Thread.” He’s defended Method acting in various interviews on the press tour. “All the recent commentary in the last few years about Method acting is invariably from people who have little or no understanding of what it actually involves,” Day-Lewis said at the London Film Festival last month. “It’s almost as if it’s some specious science that we’re involved in, or a cult. But it’s just a way of freeing yourself so that the spontaneity, when you are working with your colleagues in front of the camera, that you are free to respond in any way that you’ll move to in that moment.”
