Movies Brian Cox Blames Daniel Day-Lewis for Method Acting Obsession

Is DDL responsible for this method acting obsession?


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Takes_Two_To_Tango

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Here's another great actor Vincent D'Onofrio who talks about method acting and DDL.




https://www.indiewire.com/features/...is-method-acting-is-american-shit-1234820313/

"Just do the job," Cox said. "Don't 'identify."

Brian Cox is calling out the very American way of Method acting.

The Scottish star of “Succession” addressed co-star Jeremy Strong’s approach to his character Kendall Roy in the hit HBO series, which is concluding after its upcoming fourth and final season.

“I’m glad he is not in pain personally,” Cox told Variety, calling Strong “a wonderful actor.” Yet the Method acting debate is rooted in what Strong represents, according to Cox.

“It’s really a cultural clash,” he said. “I don’t put up with all that American shit. I’m sorry. All that sort of ‘I think, therefore I feel.’ Just do the job. Don’t ‘identify.'”

Cox pointed to Strong’s former boss and mentor Daniel Day-Lewis, with whom Cox co-starred with on 1997’s “The Boxer.”

“He retired at the age of 55, and I’m going, ‘That’s when the roles become really interesting. You’ve retired just at the point when actually the roles get better!'” Cox said. “Of course, Jeremy was Dan Day-Lewis’ assistant. So he’s learned all that stuff from Dan.”

Day-Lewis is from London, to note, while Strong is from Boston.

As for “Succession” wrapping up, Cox admitted, “I’ll miss the cast, I’ll miss the atmosphere, I’ll miss the bonhomie. [My character] Logan, probably, I’ll miss a bit. But upward and onwards.”

Cox previously said that Strong’s Method acting was “fucking annoying” and encouraged his co-star to relax.

“He’s a very good actor, and the rest of the ensemble is all OK with this. But knowing a character and what the character does is only part of the skill set,” Cox said. “He’s still that guy, because he feels if he went somewhere else he’d lose it. But he won’t! Strong is talented. He’s fucking gifted. When you’ve got the gift, celebrate the gift. Go back to your trailer and have a hit of marijuana, you know?”

Strong himself recently addressed the ongoing debate over his acting process in a GQ cover story.

“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.”

He added, “I saw that Brian Cox also said, in a follow-up interview, that ‘there is a certain amount of pain at the root of Jeremy, and I just feel for that pain.’ You know, I don’t think so. I don’t think there is. There’s certainly a lot of pain in Kendall, and I haven’t really met Brian outside of the confines of that.”

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Method acting was around before DDL and it will be around after him sir.
Cox is just angry DDL is 100x the actor he is.
I can see where he's coming from, given that he has to actually work with them all the time. I've heard stories of method actors playing antagonists and being really weird, refusing to talk to people, being abusive, not bathing, etc, all to stay in the zone. Sounds tiresome and pretentious to me.
 
I can see where he's coming from, given that he has to actually work with them all the time. I've heard stories of method actors playing antagonists and being really weird, refusing to talk to people, being abusive, not bathing, etc, all to stay in the zone. Sounds tiresome and pretentious to me.

I see your point, but if DDL keeps producing parts the way he does he can be as pretentious as he wants.

The day Brian Cox produces a My left foot, Gangs of New York, There will be blood, etc.... I'll hear him out sir.
 
I can see where he's coming from, given that he has to actually work with them all the time. I've heard stories of method actors playing antagonists and being really weird, refusing to talk to people, being abusive, not bathing, etc, all to stay in the zone. Sounds tiresome and pretentious to me.

I see your point, but if DDL keeps producing parts the way he does he can be as pretentious as he wants.

The day Brian Cox produces a My left foot, Gangs of New York, There will be blood, etc.... I'll hear him out sir.

I really don't care what method you use personally, as long as the results are remarkable. Whatever works to get to the destination.

But it would be quite difficult to work with someone who doesn't bathe, because they didn't bathe during that time period their filming ie. The Crucible. I see the predicament in that for sure.
 
I can see where he's coming from, given that he has to actually work with them all the time. I've heard stories of method actors playing antagonists and being really weird, refusing to talk to people, being abusive, not bathing, etc, all to stay in the zone. Sounds tiresome and pretentious to me.

That kind of method acting does really seem to have grown in the last 20-30 years to me, more "macho method acting" and I do wonder whether its about actors wanting to be viewed as "tough guys" rather than "luvies".

I mean really method acting originally was about identifying with the character yourself and giving a true emotional response, I think you could actually argue women probably do that more but they rarely do the kind of "macho method".
 
I see your point, but if DDL keeps producing parts the way he does he can be as pretentious as he wants.

The day Brian Cox produces a My left foot, Gangs of New York, There will be blood, etc.... I'll hear him out sir.
I think he's more looking at the character Strong is playing, which is a self-destructuive, suicidal, drug using, self-loathing, loveless, daddy issues guy; and thinking that it was taking a personal toll on Strong. Strong disagrees with Cox on this take. Given Strong's proximity to DDL, I think he is putting that partially on DDL.

DDL has a pretty decent reputation for his behaviour to my knowledge, but there are thousands of other actors that do that perverse method acting and come across as creepy, violent and terrible on set. I take it that Cox is just using DDL as a scapegoat for a larger problem, given how respected DDL is, specifically for his method acting, not just the overall product.

As he actually has to deal with them, day in and out, for decades, he is going to look at it differently than us, who just get the end product without the grief. He's giving his views on how the sausage is made.
 
Actors act the role. Method actors become the role so they don't have to act.

In the end, IDGAF since I'm not a co-actor having to deal with a method actor's bullshit. Just give me a good performance.
 
I really don't care what method you use personally, as long as the results are remarkable. Whatever works to get to the destination.

But it would be quite difficult to work with someone who doesn't bathe, because they didn't bathe during that time period their filming ie. The Crucible. I see the predicament in that for sure.

I won't go into some of the absolute shit jobs I have had, but if I had to deal with you smelling like shit for a few weeks/months and at the end I make hundreds of thousands of dollars... possibly a million/millions.... I'd fuckin bathe you myself at the end of the movie shoot sir lol.
 
I won't go into some of the absolute shit jobs I have had, but if I had to deal with you smelling like shit for a few weeks/months and at the end I make hundreds of thousands of dollars... possibly a million/millions.... I'd fuckin bathe you myself at the end of the movie shoot sir lol.

lol
 
I think he's more looking at the character Strong is playing, which is a self-destructuive, suicidal, drug using, self-loathing, loveless, daddy issues guy; and thinking that it was taking a personal toll on Strong. Strong disagree with Cox on this take. Given Strong's proximity to DDL, I think he is putting that partially on DDL.

DDL has a pretty decent reputation for his behaviour to my knowledge, but there are thousands of other actors that do that perverse method acting and come across as creepy, violent and terrible on set. I take it that Cox is just using DDL as a scapegoat for a larger problem, given how respected DDL is, specifically for his method acting, not just the overall product.

As he actually has to do with them, day in and out, for decades, he is going to look at it differently than us, who just get the end product without the grief. He's giving his views on how the sausage is made.

Exactly the point I originally made sir.
 
Cox is hardly the first actor to call out Method Acting. While shooting Marathon Man, Hoffman decided to stay awake for 72 hours so he would look and feel like a man at the end of his endurance during the infamous, "Is it safe?" scene. When he informed his co-star, Laurence Olivier, the legendary thespian asked,

"Have you considered just acting, dear boy?""
 
body-acting is hard and DDL is very good at it.
don't see the hate for it.
like arguing that a sword maker that makes the best swords does it naked, unlike other sword makers, and the other sword makers complain that "just keep your clothes on, man!"
 
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