Daniel Day-Lewis on row with Brian Cox over method acting: ‘I don’t know where the f**k that came from’

Daniel Day-Lewis has reflected on being drawn into a “handbags at dawn conflict” with fellow actor Brian Cox over method acting.

Speaking to this week’s Big Issue, out today (Monday 3 November), Day-Lewis said he was surprised to be drawn into the method acting spat between Cox and Jeremy Strong, who earned his on-screen father’s irritation after using the technique when they worked together on multi-Emmy-winning drama Succession.

“Listen, I worked with Brian Cox once and got somehow drawn into this handbags-at-dawn conflict inadvertently,” Day-Lewis tells the Big Issue. “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.

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“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.”

In Big Issue’s exclusive feature interview, Day-Lewis also reflects on his seven-year-break from acting, which he’s now ended to appear in his son Ronan Day-Lewis’ feature directorial debut Anemone.

Fears that he had permanently retired from acting were created by what he now calls an “ill-advised statement” which read: “Daniel Day-Lewis will no longer be working as an actor.” He tells Big Issue that comments around his method acting process were partially responsible.

“I just don’t like it being misrepresented to the extent it has been,” he admits. “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’ [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.

“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.”

Read the full interview with Daniel Day-Lewis in this week’s Big Issue, out now.

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