Daniel Day-Lewis’ issue with John Wayne: “I find it hard to watch him”
The actors who are deemed the greatest don’t achieve such a status without thoroughly earning it, and when it comes to Daniel Day-Lewis, he is a true artist of acting who has shown time and time again that he possesses a deep understanding of his craft that has led to some of the most magnificent performances of all time.
Looking over a stellar career in the film industry, there are countless mesmerising and commanding Day-Lewis efforts. From his breakthrough roles in A Room with a View and The Unbearable Lightness of Being to his Academy Award-winning turns in My Left Foot, There Will Be Blood and Lincoln, Day-Lewis has consistently captivated his audiences.
It’s often been the case that Day-Lewis has performed in historical movies, too, including those set in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. However, one genre that Day-Lewis never really tapped into was western movies, although a handful of his films perhaps explored similar eras and themes, like The Last of the Mohicans and There Will Be Blood.
Interestingly, though, Day-Lewis has a penchant for a handful of western movies, even if he doesn’t “particularly like westerns as a genre”, as per his writing in The New York Times. The actor went on to express his admiration for Gary Cooper in the 1952 effort High Noon, saying that he loves “the purity and the honesty” of his performance.
Elsewhere, the movies of Clint Eastwood and John Ford were always those that Day-Lewis had “admired”. However, there was one Western movie icon that Day-Lewis seemed to have a pretty low opinion of, even though he was certainly one of the genre’s most prominent actors and frequent performers.
“I do not like John Wayne: I find it hard to watch him,” Day-Lewis simply stated. “I just never took to him.” There seems to be a hint in Day-Lewis’ words that he really tried to get down with Wayne’s efforts on screen, but having tried, he failed to understand why The Duke had such a widespread cultural appeal.
Throughout his career, Wayne established himself as a significant player in the Golden Era of Hollywood, particularly in the Western movie genre. After all, Wayne gave some of the best Western performances of all time, including those in The Big Trail, Stagecoach, Red River, The Searchers and True Grit.
Even still, such efforts on screen were not appreciated by Day-Lewis, who seemed to dismiss Wayne out of hand without further consideration. The Duke would have been undoubtedly angered to hear of Day-Lewis shooting his performances down, but thankfully for him, he had passed away long before the Phantom Thread actor’s comments were made.
Wayne had previously spoken of the criticism of his performance in an interview with Roger Ebert, noting, “Of course, they give me that John Wayne stuff so much, claim I always play the same role. To stay a star, you have to bring along some of your own personality. Thousands of good actors can carry a scene, but a star has to carry the scene and still, without intruding, allow some of his character into it.”
Had Wayne caught wind of Day-Lewis’ disapproval of him as an actor, then it’s like he would have returned fire, as he was so often likely to take shots at many of his fellow performers, regardless of their cultural standing, of which Daniel Day-Lewis has probably the best in modern cinema.
