Method acting is confusing. That’s the takeaway from a recent rumor published in the New York Post’s Page Six gossip section, saying that the reason famed Method devotee Daniel Day-Lewis recently announced his retirement from acting is because he’s found a new career as a dressmaker. The paper claims that Day-Lewis has been studying the art of haute couture for some time, but waited to announce his career change until he could “go out with a bang”—i.e. Paul Thomas Anderson’s next film, unofficially referred to as Phantom Thread.
The thing is, though, that Day-Lewis is playing a couturier in said film. So, yeah, he presumably has been studying dressmaking for a few years to prepare for the role, because he’s committed like that. But making the link between that and his retirement from acting seems, let’s say, tentative, especially since Day-Lewis has taken extended breaks from acting before. One of those times was a 10-month stint apprenticing under master cobbler Stefano Bemer in Florence in the late ’90s, though, so who knows? Maybe his true love really is fashion. He does rock a hat better than most…