It has been quite some time since anyone saw or heard from the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his announcement in 2017 that he would no longer work as an actor, prior to the release of The Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis withdrew from the spotlight. Yet, in his absence, his legend has only grown.
The Legend of His Method
Largely, this reputation revolves around his favored style of working. Being an actor known for immerses himself in his characters – 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 how he works. Did he actually sent messages to co-star Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Did he only eat game he hunted for The Last of the Mohicans? Did he insist on receiving food via spoon for My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: has the public fallen out of love with over-the-top performances?
Now, Day-Lewis has returned to public attention, with some hesitation, promoting his latest movie Anemone. He is using this to vocalise his frustration at how the Method technique is perceived. “I am somewhat annoyed these days when I hear all kinds of people gobbling off and using phrases like ‘gone full method’, which seems suggests that a person’s behaving like a lunatic in an extreme fashion,” he stated to the New York Times. “Everyone often concentrate on superficial aspects of acting, and these elements typically include some form of self-punishment or a situation that causes a severe discomfort or psychological strain. But of course, in the career of an actor, it has to principally be about the inner transformation.”
A World of Imitators
Frankly, this sounds as if Day-Lewis has emerged from seclusion and found himself aghast at the world that has been created mirroring his methods. When you are regarded as one of the greatest performers in history, and your process involves striking a prop to the point of injury (for Gangs of New York) or enduring two days in isolation without food or water (for In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that other actors will want to emulate that example by trying to mimic your hero.
Essentially, we exist in an environment full of half-cocked imitators of Day-Lewis who strive only to show the world the extensive degree of dedication they put into a character. At the shallow end of this trend we have people like Lady Gaga, who was determined to earn an Academy Award for House of Gucci that she spent the entire promotion trying to convince everyone that she became an Italian native for a year and a half as preparation.
Additionally, there is Jared Leto, who chose to immerse himself in the character as the Joker (in Suicide Squad) by sending “disturbing” presents to his castmates. These items, depending on who you ask, range from deceased animals to anal beads and personal hygiene products, though Leto denied those worst excesses. And then, of course, we have Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully as Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that filmmakers literally managed to get a feature-length documentary out of B-roll of him making life as impossible as he could for his colleagues.
The Modern Followers of the Method
The foremost practitioner of the Method currently seems to be Jeremy Strong (formerly Day-Lewis’s assistant), 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 either concerned about his conduct (“It’s the cost to himself concerns me,” remarked Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by it (“I recall [him] making everyone else to react with exasperation,” stated an unnamed co-star).
Daniel Day-Lewis says he ‘never intended to stop acting, truly’
We have numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex for six months while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside an animal carcass for The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that actor Austin Butler still speaks like Elvis Presley, three years after that film came out. Each of these instances, to some extent, is meant to invoke the seriousness with which Day-Lewis approaches his work.
An Admirable But Uphill Fight
Moreover, although his rebuttal to critics of the Method could be commendable, a short publicity tour might not be enough to alter perceptions, let alone their practices. Perhaps if he wishes to remind people what method acting is, or to show them its potential results, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to just begin producing more films. Certainly we could all get behind that.
