Daniel Day-Lewis responds to Brian Cox's method acting critique.

1 month ago7 min read7 comments

The long-simmering, often-misunderstood debate over method acting has found its latest stage in a surprisingly public, yet impeccably polite, exchange between two of cinema's most formidable knights. It began when Brian Cox, in his characteristically blunt and unvarnished memoir, took a scalpel to the practice, singling out Daniel Day-Lewis's legendary, almost monastic dedication as 'a pain in the arse' and questioning the artistic necessity of such extremes, suggesting it can veer into a kind of self-indulgent folly that places an undue burden on fellow cast and crew.The critique landed not as a mere opinion, but as a fundamental challenge to an artistic philosophy that has defined a generation of performance. Now, from the quiet of his well-documented retirement, Day-Lewis has offered a response that is as measured and deliberate as his process, telling The Guardian, with a quiet but unmistakable sharpness, 'Any time he wants to talk about it, I’m easy to find.' This is not the rant of a wounded ego; it is the calm, open invitation of a man who feels his life's work has been fundamentally misrepresented, a subtle gauntlet thrown down not in anger, but in a desire for a more substantive conversation. The core of Cox's argument, echoed by others like Sir Ian McKellen and the late Helen Mirren, revolves around the practical tyranny of the method—the idea that an actor who refuses to break character, who demands to be addressed by their fictional name even between takes, who requires a specific, often arduous physical transformation, creates a disruptive and arguably unnecessary environment.They champion a different school, one of technical precision and emotional intelligence, where the actor is a master craftsman who can turn their performance on and off with the call of 'action' and 'cut,' a tradition that produced giants like Laurence Olivier, who famously quipped to a method-immersed Dustin Hoffman on the set of 'Marathon Man,' 'My dear boy, why don't you just try acting?' Yet, to dismiss Day-Lewis's approach as mere affectation is to ignore the monumental results: the three Academy Awards for Best Actor, a record he holds alone, for portrayals so visceral and complete they seem to erase the actor entirely, leaving only the spectral presence of Christy Brown in 'My Left Foot,' the brutal butchery of Bill the Butcher in 'Gangs of New York,' and the obsessive haute couture of Reynolds Woodcock in 'Phantom Thread. ' His process is not a publicity stunt; it is an archaeological dig into the human soul, a total immersion he has described as a necessity for uncovering truths he feels are inaccessible through mere technique.The tension between these two approaches—the external technique of Cox versus the internal possession of Day-Lewis—is the central dialectic of modern acting, a debate about where the line lies between dedicated preparation and performative excess. For Day-Lewis, the misrepresentation likely stings not because it critiques his choices, but because it reduces a profound, almost spiritual commitment to a mere inconvenience.

#Daniel Day-Lewis

#Brian Cox

#method acting

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