It’s been a long while since anyone saw or heard from the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. After he announcement in 2017 declaring he would cease to work as an actor, prior to the release of Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis quietly faded from view. However, during his hiatus, his legend expanded further.
The Mythos of His Method
Largely, this legend revolves around his favored approach to roles. Being an actor known for immerses himself in his characters – for example, while filming the Lincoln biopic, reportedly asked Steven Spielberg call him “Mr. President” throughout the shoot – audiences has become increasingly obsessed with his process. Is it true he actually sent messages to co-star Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Was it accurate that he only eat game he hunted during The Last of the Mohicans? Did he demand being spoon-fed while filming My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: has the public fallen out of love with over-the-top performances?
Now, Day-Lewis has returned in the limelight, with some hesitation, for his new film Anemone. And he is taking this chance to vocalise his anger at how method acting is viewed. “I’m a little cross nowadays when I hear all kinds of people gobbling off and saying things like ‘gone full method’, which seems is meant to imply that a person’s acting insane in a drastic way,” he stated to the New York Times. “Everyone tends to focus on superficial details of the work, and those details always seem to involve some sort of self-punishment or a situation that imposes upon oneself extreme unease or mental instability. But of course, in the life of an actor, it must mainly focus on the inner transformation.”
An Industry of Imitators
To be honest, it appears as if Day-Lewis has emerged from his retreat and found himself shocked by the world that has been created mirroring his methods. If you’re widely considered among the best performers to ever work, and your process includes headbutting a dummy to the point of injury (for Gangs of New York) or enduring 48 hours in isolation deprived of sustenance (for In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that other actors will attempt to fill that vacuum by imitating your hero.
Essentially, we now live in an environment full of imperfect Day-Lewis impersonators who want nothing more than to demonstrate the sheer amount of dedication they invest in a character. On the milder side of the pool we have people like Lady Gaga, who was determined to win an Oscar for House of Gucci that she dedicated the entire promotion attempting to persuade people that she became functionally Italian for a year and a half as preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who decided to deeply embed himself into the role of the Joker (for Suicide Squad) through sending “horrifying” presents to his castmates. These, according to various accounts, range from dead pigs and rats to intimate objects and used condoms, though the actor refuted those worst excesses. And then, naturally, we have Jim Carrey, who went so deep as Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that they literally managed to get a feature-length documentary out of B-roll of him causing difficulties as impossible as he could for everyone around him.
Contemporary Followers of the Method
The main practitioner of the Method at the moment would appear to be Jeremy Strong (once Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose process during Succession was so laboriously intensive that it formed the basis of a critical New Yorker profile, including statements from people who were either concerned for his behaviour (“It’s the cost to himself concerns me,” remarked co-star Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by his actions (“I recall him causing others to react with exasperation,” stated an anonymous cast member).
Daniel Day-Lewis says he ‘never intended to retire, truly’
There are numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield went celibate for six months for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in a dead animal during The Revenant. It’s quite possible that actor Austin Butler still speaks like Elvis Presley, three years after that film came out. All of this, to some extent, is meant to invoke the dedication in which Day-Lewis approaches his work.
A Noble But Uphill Battle
Moreover, although his rebuttal against method detractors could be commendable, a brief promotional cycle might not be enough to alter perceptions, let alone their practices. Perhaps if he wants to make audiences recall what method acting is, or to demonstrate what it can achieve, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to just start making additional movies. Surely we could all get behind that.
