Daniel Day-Lewis "didn't have a clue what [he] was doing" with his first Oscar-winning movie role.

The 68-year-old star is known for his method acting technique of absorbing himself in his characters but when he tried it for the first time playing Christy Brown in 1989's My Left Foot, he was "clueless" about his approach.

Speaking at the BFI London Film festival, he admitted: "I was clueless. I didn't have a f****** clue what I was doing."

As filming went on, Daniel began to take "very gentle steps" towards using method techniques.

He said: "I thought of the wheelchair as a cage … and I began to work a lot with my foot."

The Anemone star insisted his approach "makes sense" to him but other actors can still do great work without it.

He added: "And hats off to them.

"I still find that process a joyful thing. We're playing games for a living."

Daniel believes critics of the "cult"-like techique don't really understand it.

He said: "It is invariably from people that have little or no understanding of what it actually involves.

"It's almost like some special science that we're involved in, or a cult, but it's just a way of freeing yourself [for] the spontaneity when you are working with your colleagues in front of the camera, so that you are free to respond in any way that you're moved to in that moment."

The Phantom Thread actor recently admitted he is a "little cross" with stars who have given those who use the method approach a reputation for "behaving like a lunatic in an extreme fashion".

He told The New York Times newspaper: "I don't really like thinking of acting in terms of craft at all. Of course, there are techniques you can learn, and I know that the Method has become an easy target these days.

"I'm a little cross these days to hear all kinds of people gobbling off and saying things like 'gone full Method,' which I think is meant to imply that a person's behaving like a lunatic in an extreme fashion.

"Everyone tends to focus on the less important details of the work, and those details always seem to involve some sort of self-flagellation or an experience that imposes upon oneself a severe discomfort or mental instability.

"But of course, in the life of an actor, it has to principally be about the internal work."