Oscar-winning star Daniel Day-Lewis has bemoaned people using method acting to imply that someone is behaving like a “lunatic”.
The 68-year-old actor, who has been known to fully immerse himself in a role, believes the term has become associated with actors who behave badly on set.
“I don’t really like thinking of acting in terms of craft at all,” said Day-Lewis, who is returning to acting in the film Anemone after an eight-year hiatus.
“Of course, there are techniques you can learn, and I know that the method has become an easy target these days,” he told the New York Times.
“I’m a little cross these days to hear all kinds of people gobbling off and saying things like ‘gone full method’, which I think is meant to imply that a person’s behaving like a lunatic in an extreme fashion.”
“Everyone tends to focus on the less important details of the work, and those details always seem to involve some sort of self-flagellation or an experience that imposes upon oneself a severe discomfort or mental instability,” continued Day-Lewis.
“But of course, in the life of an actor, it has to principally be about the internal work.”
Day-Lewis has won three Oscars during his career and often goes to extraordinary lengths to maintain his character’s identity.
Looper once reported that, on the set of Gangs of New York, the actor caught pneumonia after refusing to wear a winter coat in freezing temperatures. He also reportedly instructed his cast and crew on Steven Spielberg’s Abraham Lincoln biopic to refer to him as “Mr Lincoln” only.
Adolescence star Stephen Graham, who worked with Day-Lewis on Gangs of New York, recalled to The Guardian in 2024: “On the day of filming, I’m sitting in the chair in makeup, and Daniel comes walking through in full regalia.
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“I’ll never forget it. He looks in the mirror, puts his hand on my shoulder, and he goes, ‘From now on, I call you Shang and you call me Bill [their respective characters].’ And I just went, ‘OK, Bill,’ and that was it. We were locked in.”
Anemone, directed by the actor’s son Ronan, is the first film Day-Lewis has made since 2017’s Phantom Thread, which he initially stated would be his final film. Speaking ahead of the world premiere of Anemone at the New York Film Festival, Day-Lewis said he regretted how definitive his retirement statement sounded.
“Looking back on it now – I would have done well to just keep my mouth shut, for sure,” he told Rolling Stone. “It just seems like such grandiose gibberish to talk about. I never intended to retire, really. I just stopped doing that particular type of work so I could do some other work.”
“Apparently, I’ve been accused of retiring twice now,” he continued. “I never meant to retire from anything! I just wanted to work on something else for a while.”
He stars in Anemone as Ray, an estranged hermit, whose brother Jem (Sean Bean) leaves his suburban home and ventures out into the woods to reconnect with him. There is currently no release date but the film will screen as part of the BFI London Film Festival (LFF).
