It has been quite some time since the public caught a glimpse of Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his announcement in 2017 declaring he would no longer pursue acting, just before the release of The Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis quietly faded from view. Yet, in his absence, his reputation expanded further.
The Legend of His Method
Largely, this legend centers on his favored approach to roles. Being an actor known for immerses himself in his characters – for instance, while filming the Lincoln biopic, he had Steven Spielberg address him as “Mr. President” for the entire production – audiences has become increasingly obsessed with his process. Did he actually sent texts to Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Did he only eat animals he’d killed during The Last of the Mohicans? And did he insist on receiving food via spoon for My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: has the public fallen out of love with actorly excess?
Currently, Day-Lewis is back in the limelight, somewhat reluctantly, promoting his latest movie Anemone. And he is taking this chance to express his anger at how method acting is viewed. “I am somewhat annoyed these days when I hear all kinds of people gobbling off and saying things like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which seems suggests that a person’s acting insane in an extreme fashion,” he told the New York Times. “Everyone tends to focus on superficial aspects of acting, and those details always seem to involve some sort of self-punishment or an experience that imposes upon oneself a severe discomfort or mental instability. However, in the life for a performer, it must principally be about the inner transformation.”
An Industry Full of Followers
Frankly, it appears like the actor has emerged from his retreat only to discover aghast at the acting community that has been created in his image. When you are widely considered among the best actors in history, and your process involves headbutting a dummy until you break your nose (in 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 attempt to fill that vacuum by trying to mimic your hero.
In other words, we exist in a landscape populated by half-cocked Day-Lewis impersonators who want nothing more than to demonstrate the sheer amount of dedication they put into their roles. On the milder side of the pool we have people like Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to win an Oscar for House of Gucci that she spent the entire promotion attempting to persuade people that she transformed into an Italian native for a year and a half in preparation.
Additionally, there is Jared Leto, who chose to immerse himself into the role as the Joker (for Suicide Squad) by sending “disturbing” gifts to his castmates. These items, according to various accounts, range from deceased animals to anal beads and used condoms, though the actor refuted the most extreme claims. And then, of course, we have Jim Carrey, who went so deep into Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that filmmakers literally managed to get a full-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him causing difficulties as impossible as he could for everyone around him.
The Modern Method Practitioners
The foremost practitioner of the Method at the moment seems to be Jeremy Strong (formerly an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose process while filming Succession was so rigorously detailed that it formed the subject of a critical magazine feature, full of quotes from people who were either concerned about his conduct (“It’s the cost to himself concerns me,” said co-star Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by his actions (“I remember [him] making others to react with exasperation,” said an unnamed co-star).
Daniel Day-Lewis claims he ‘did not plan to stop acting, truly’
We have numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield went celibate for six months while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in an animal carcass for The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that Austin Butler still speaks like Elvis Presley, three years after that film came out. Each of these instances, in part, is meant to invoke the dedication in which Day-Lewis takes his work.
A Noble But Uphill Battle
And, although his rebuttal to critics of the Method might be noble, a short publicity tour may prove insufficient to change anyone’s mind, let alone their behaviour. Maybe if he wishes to make audiences recall the true essence of the Method, or to show them its potential results, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to simply begin producing additional movies. Certainly we could all get behind that.
