Daniel Day-Lewis names the movie he found “infuriating”
The debate over the merits of method acting is one that continues to rage to his day, and has done ever since John Wayne blasted the incoming generation of what he denigrated as “T-shirt actors” who started to make their way from Broadway to the silver screen beginning from the 1940s, but Daniel Day-Lewis is proof that the approach can yield mesmerising results.
The first – and still only – performer in history to win three Academy Awards for ‘Best Actor’, the six-time nominee was famed for completely and fully dedicating himself to each and every part that he played. For some, Day-Lewis was pushing himself to unnecessary lengths for the purpose of a single feature, but there are just as many who’d disagree and point to the evidence that the results speak for themselves.
By his usual standards, the part of Reynolds Woodcock in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Phantom Thread would require significantly less intense preparations than usual, at least on paper. A renowned dressmaker in 1950s London living a life of bachelorhood, the arrival of a new muse opens the doors to an intoxicating awakening. Hardly the stuff of complete reinvention.
Inevitably, it wasn’t quite so simple in practice, with Day-Lewis once more immersing himself into the character to convey the utmost realism and authenticity. Naturally, months were spent ensuring he could convincingly pull off his portrayal of a boundlessly creative fashionista.
As he told W Magazine, a picture of a certain dress caught his eye and enraptured him to such an extent that he felt compelled to recreate it himself. Describing the garment as “very simple”, Day-Lewis was swiftly proven wrong once he actually had to figure out a way to make it, admitting that it was “incredibly complicated”.
He reflected on the risk being worth the reward, offering the sage advice that “if you try to do any goddamn thing in your life, you know how impossible it is to achieve that effortless simplicity”. His method stylings didn’t begin and end with his hands, either, after Day-Lewis sought to exert near-total dominion over not just Woodcock’s backstory but virtually everything that surrounded him.
That extended to selecting every item of the character’s wardrobe that gets worn on-screen, from the tailored suits right down to the socks, the way his home was decorated, the items he kept on the nightstand, the type of sketch pads and a variety of pens he used to design his creations, and even the dogs he owned.
It was Day-Lewis who demanded lurchers, confessing that he “gave so much thought to every single detail”. Or, as he put it in a more self-effacing manner, “I was probably infuriating”. Infuriating or not, the leading man’s reunion with Anderson delivered the goods once again, culminating in a sixth Oscar nomination for ‘Best Actor’, and presumably his last unless Martin Scorsese can twist his arm.
