Daniel Day-Lewis defends the “Method Acting”

The actor with 3 Oscars is annoyed: “The method has become an easy target today”.

Back under the spotlight after his retirement, Daniel Day-Lewis spoke to defend his approach to the profession and in particular the “Method Acting”, of which he is one of the most famous followers. An increasingly criticized practice. In recent years, we have for example heard Brian Cox reproach his comrade to SuccessionJeremy Strong, to do too much.

Obviously, the 3 Oscars won by Daniel Day-Lewis tend to prove him right. And in an interview with New York Timesthe 68 -year -old actor tempers first that he “Don’t like to think of acting in terms of technique“. For him, to focus excessively on the process diverts the actors from the essentials: “We end up dwelling on less important details of work.”

But he continues by insisting:

“Of course, there are game techniques that we can learn. I know that the method has become an easy target today. But I am a little annoyed to hear all kinds of cudlying people saying that Untel left in Full Method ‘, which suggests that the actor behaves like a madman in the extreme …”

As a reminder, what is called Method Acting – Or the methodalso called Stanislavski system – suggests a total dive of the actor in the character, without getting out of the role. An approach that deeply marked American cinema, inspiring actors in the 1960s like Marlon Brando, Al Pacino or Robert de Niro.

Daniel Day-Lewis does not want this way of embodying to be stigmatized and defends:

“Everyone tends to focus on the secondary details of the work, which would imply a kind of systematic self-spilling or an experience of severe discomfort, even mental instability with the method. But in the life of an actor, it must above all come from an inner work!”

The actor had announced his retirement in 2017, shortly before the release of Phantom Thread by Paul Thomas Anderson. But in 2025, Daniel Day-Lewis resurfaced in Anemonean independent drama signed by his son Ronan Day-Lewis. He plays Ray there, a former British soldier who has become reclusive. We do not know if he used the method on filming the film …