It’s been a long while since the public caught a glimpse of Daniel Day-Lewis. After he statement in 2017 declaring he would cease to work as an actor, prior to the debut of Phantom Thread, the actor quietly faded from view. Yet, in his absence, his legend has only grown.
The Mythos of His Method
Primarily, this reputation revolves around his favored style of working. Being an actor who famously disappears into his characters – for example, while filming Lincoln, reportedly asked the director address him as “Mr. President” for the entire production – audiences has become more fascinated with how he works. Is it true he really send texts to Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Was it accurate that he only eat animals he’d killed for Last of the Mohicans? And did he insist on being spoon-fed while filming My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: have we lost interest with over-the-top performances?
Now, Daniel Day-Lewis has returned in the limelight, with some hesitation, promoting his latest movie Anemone. He is using this to vocalise his anger at how method acting is viewed. “I’m a little cross nowadays to hear all kinds of people talking carelessly and using phrases like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which seems is meant to imply that someone is behaving like a lunatic in an extreme fashion,” he stated to the New York Times. “People often concentrate on the less important aspects of acting, and those details always seem to involve some form of self-punishment or an experience that causes extreme unease or psychological strain. But of course, in the career for a performer, it has to mainly focus on the internal work.”
A World of Imitators
To be honest, this sounds as if the actor has emerged from seclusion only to discover aghast at the world that has been created mirroring his methods. If you’re widely considered among the best performers to ever work, and your approach involves headbutting a dummy to the point of injury (for Gangs of New York) or spending two days in isolation without food or water (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 a landscape full of half-cocked 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 spent the whole campaign attempting to persuade people that she transformed into an Italian native over 18 months in preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who decided to deeply embed himself into the role as the Joker (for Suicide Squad) by sending “disturbing” gifts to fellow cast members. These items, depending on who you ask, included deceased animals to intimate objects and used condoms, although Leto denied the most extreme claims. Then, naturally, we have Jim Carrey, who went so deep into Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that filmmakers literally managed in creating 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 main practitioner of the Method at the moment would appear to be Jeremy Strong (formerly an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose process while filming Succession was so rigorously detailed that it became the subject of a derisive magazine feature, full of quotes from individuals who were worried for his behaviour (“The toll to himself that worries me,” remarked co-star Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by it (“I recall him causing everyone else to react with exasperation,” stated an unnamed co-star).
Daniel Day-Lewis says he ‘did not plan to stop acting, really’
There are numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex for six months for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside an animal carcass for The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that actor Austin Butler continues to talk like Elvis Presley, years following the movie’s release. Each of these instances, in part, aims to evoke the dedication in which Day-Lewis takes his work.
An Admirable Yet Challenging Battle
Moreover, while his fightback against method detractors might be noble, a brief promotional cycle might not be enough to alter perceptions, not to mention their practices. Perhaps if he wishes to remind people what method acting is, or to demonstrate its potential results, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to simply begin producing more films. Surely we could all support that idea.
