It has been quite some time since anyone caught a glimpse of the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his statement in 2017 declaring he would no longer pursue acting, just before the release of Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis quietly faded from view. However, during his hiatus, his legend has only grown.
The Legend Surrounding His Acting Method
Largely, this reputation centers on his preferred approach to roles. Being an actor known for disappears into the roles he plays – for example, while filming Lincoln, he had the director call him “Mr President” throughout the shoot – the world has grown more fascinated with his process. Is it true he really send messages to co-star Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Was it accurate that he only eat game he hunted for The Last of the Mohicans? Did he insist on being spoon-fed while filming My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: have we fallen out of love with actorly excess?
Now, Daniel Day-Lewis is back in the limelight, somewhat reluctantly, promoting his latest movie Anemone. And he is taking this chance to express his frustration at how method acting is viewed. “I am somewhat annoyed nowadays when I hear various individuals 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,” he told the New York Times. “People often concentrate on superficial aspects of acting, and those details typically include some sort of self-flagellation or a situation that imposes upon oneself a severe discomfort or psychological strain. But of course, in the career for a performer, it must principally be about the internal work.”
An Industry Full of Followers
Frankly, this sounds like Day-Lewis has come out from his retreat only to discover shocked by the acting community that has developed in his image. If you’re regarded as one of the greatest performers to ever work, and your approach involves headbutting a dummy to the point of injury (in Gangs of New York) or enduring two days in isolation deprived of sustenance (during In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that other actors will want to emulate that example by imitating their idol.
In other words, we now live in an environment full of imperfect imitators of Day-Lewis who want nothing more than to demonstrate the sheer amount of effort they invest in a character. At the shallow end of this trend we have people like Lady Gaga, who was determined to win an Oscar for House of Gucci that she spent the entire promotion attempting to persuade people that she became an Italian native for a year and a half as preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who chose to immerse himself in the character as the Joker (for Suicide Squad) by sending “horrifying” presents to fellow cast members. These, according to various accounts, included deceased animals to anal beads and used condoms, although the actor refuted those worst excesses. And then, of course, we have Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully as Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that they literally managed in creating a feature-length documentary out of B-roll of him making life to the utmost for everyone around him.
Contemporary Followers of the Method
The main practitioner of the Method currently would appear to be Jeremy Strong (formerly Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose approach during Succession was so rigorously detailed that it formed the subject of a critical New Yorker profile, including statements from people who were either concerned for his behaviour (“The toll on himself concerns me,” said co-star Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by his actions (“I recall [him] making others to react with exasperation,” said an anonymous cast member).
The actor claims he ‘never intended to stop acting, really’
There are so many other examples. Andrew Garfield went celibate over half a year for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside a dead animal during The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that Austin Butler still speaks like Elvis Presley, three years after the movie’s release. All of this, in part, aims to evoke the dedication in which Day-Lewis approaches his work.
An Admirable But Uphill Battle
Moreover, while his fightback to critics of the Method might be noble, a brief promotional cycle might not be enough to change anyone’s mind, not to mention their practices. Maybe if he wishes to make audiences recall the true essence of the Method, or to demonstrate its potential results, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to just start making more films. Surely we could all support that idea.
