It’s been quite some time since the public saw or heard from the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his announcement in 2017 declaring he would cease to pursue acting, prior to the release of The Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis withdrew from the spotlight. Yet, during his hiatus, his legend has only grown.
The Legend Surrounding His Method
Largely, this reputation revolves around his favored style of working. As someone who famously immerses himself in the roles he plays – for example, during the Lincoln biopic, he had Steven Spielberg address him as “Mr. President” for the entire production – audiences has grown more fascinated with his process. Did he actually sent texts to Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Was it accurate that he only eat animals he’d killed for Last of the Mohicans? Did he insist on being spoon-fed for My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: has the public fallen out of love with over-the-top performances?
Currently, Daniel Day-Lewis has returned in the limelight, somewhat reluctantly, for his new film Anemone. He is using this to vocalise his frustration regarding how method acting is viewed. “I’m a little cross nowadays when I hear various individuals gobbling off and saying things like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which I think suggests that someone is behaving like a lunatic in an extreme fashion,” he told the New York Times. “People often concentrate on the less important details of the work, and those details always seem to involve some form of self-flagellation or a situation that causes extreme unease or psychological strain. However, in the life for a performer, it has to mainly focus on the inner transformation.”
An Industry Full of Followers
To be honest, this sounds as if Day-Lewis has come out from seclusion only to discover shocked by the world that has been created in his image. When you are widely considered one of the greatest performers to ever work, and your approach involves headbutting a dummy until you break your nose (for Gangs of New York) or spending two days in solitary confinement deprived of sustenance (for In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that other actors will want to fill that vacuum by imitating their idol.
Essentially, we exist in a landscape full of imperfect Day-Lewis impersonators who strive only to show the world the extensive degree of dedication they put into a character. At the shallow end of the pool there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to win an Oscar for House of Gucci that she spent the entire promotion trying to convince everyone that she became functionally Italian over 18 months as preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who chose to immerse himself into the role of the Joker (in Suicide Squad) through sending “horrifying” gifts to fellow cast members. These, according to various accounts, range from dead pigs and rats to intimate objects and personal hygiene products, although the actor refuted those worst excesses. Then, of course, there is Jim Carrey, who went so deep as Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that filmmakers literally managed in creating a feature-length documentary out of B-roll of him making life as impossible as he could for his colleagues.
Contemporary Method Practitioners
The foremost Method Guy currently seems to be Jeremy Strong (once Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose process during Succession was so laboriously intensive that it formed the basis of a derisive magazine feature, full of quotes from individuals who were either concerned for his behaviour (“The toll to himself that worries me,” said co-star Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by it (“I recall [him] making others to react with exasperation,” said an anonymous cast member).
Daniel Day-Lewis says he ‘did not plan to retire, truly’
We have so many other examples. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex for six months for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in an animal carcass during The Revenant. It’s quite possible that actor Austin Butler continues to talk in the style of Elvis, years following that film came out. Each of these instances, to some extent, is meant to invoke the seriousness in which Day-Lewis takes his craft.
A Noble But Uphill Fight
And, although his rebuttal against method detractors could be commendable, a brief promotional cycle may prove insufficient to change anyone’s mind, not to mention their practices. Maybe if he wishes to remind people what method acting is, or to demonstrate its potential results, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to simply begin producing additional movies. Surely we could all get behind that.
