It has been quite some time since the public caught a glimpse of Daniel Day-Lewis. After he statement in 2017 declaring he would no longer work as an actor, prior to the debut of The Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis quietly faded from view. Yet, during his hiatus, his legend has only grown.
The Legend of His Method
Primarily, this reputation revolves around his favored approach to roles. Being an actor who famously disappears into his characters – for example, while filming Lincoln, reportedly asked the director address him as “Mr. President” throughout the shoot – audiences has grown more fascinated with his process. Is it true he really send texts to Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Did he consumed solely game he hunted for The Last of the Mohicans? And did he demand being spoon-fed while filming My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: have we lost interest with actorly excess?
Currently, Day-Lewis has returned in the limelight, somewhat reluctantly, for his new film Anemone. And he is taking this chance to express his frustration regarding how the Method technique is viewed. “I am somewhat annoyed nowadays to hear all kinds of people talking carelessly and saying things like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which seems suggests that someone is behaving like a lunatic in an extreme fashion,” he told the New York Times. “People often concentrate on superficial details of the work, and those details always seem to involve some form of self-flagellation or an experience that imposes upon oneself a severe discomfort or psychological strain. However, in the life of an actor, it has to principally be about the internal work.”
An Industry of Imitators
To be honest, it appears as if Day-Lewis has come out from his retreat only to discover aghast at the acting community that has developed mirroring his methods. When you are widely considered one of the greatest performers to ever work, and your process includes headbutting a dummy until you break your nose (in Gangs of New York) or enduring two days in solitary confinement deprived of sustenance (during In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that fellow performers will attempt to emulate that example by trying to mimic their idol.
In other words, we now live in an environment populated by half-cocked imitators of Day-Lewis who strive only to demonstrate the extensive degree of dedication they put into a character. On the milder side of the pool we have people like Lady Gaga, who was determined to win an Oscar with House of Gucci that she dedicated the whole campaign trying to convince everyone that she became an Italian native for a year and a half in preparation.
Additionally, there is Jared Leto, who chose to deeply embed himself in the character as the Joker (for Suicide Squad) through sending “horrifying” presents to fellow cast members. These, according to various accounts, included deceased animals to anal beads and used condoms, though the actor refuted the most extreme claims. And then, naturally, we have Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully into Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that they literally managed to get a feature-length documentary out of B-roll of him making life as impossible as he could for everyone around him.
The Modern Followers of the Method
The foremost Method Guy currently seems to be Jeremy Strong (once an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose process during Succession was so laboriously intensive that it formed the basis of a critical New Yorker profile, including statements from individuals who were worried for his behaviour (“The toll to himself that worries me,” said Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by it (“I remember him causing others roll their eyes,” stated an unnamed co-star).
The actor says he ‘never intended to stop acting, truly’
There are numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield went celibate for six months while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside a dead animal during The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that actor Austin Butler still speaks in the style of Elvis, three years after the movie’s release. Each of these instances, to some extent, is meant to invoke the seriousness with which Day-Lewis approaches his work.
An Admirable Yet Challenging Fight
Moreover, while his fightback to critics of the Method might be noble, a short publicity tour might not be enough to alter perceptions, not to mention their practices. Maybe if he wants to make audiences recall what method acting is, or to demonstrate what it can achieve, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to simply start making additional movies. Surely everyone would get behind that.
