It’s been quite some time since anyone saw or heard from the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. After he announcement in 2017 that he would no longer pursue acting, prior to the debut of The Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis quietly faded from view. Yet, during his hiatus, his legend has only grown.
The Mythos of His Method
Largely, this reputation revolves around his preferred approach to roles. As someone who famously disappears into the roles he plays – for example, during the Lincoln biopic, reportedly asked the director address him as “Mr President” for the entire production – audiences has grown increasingly obsessed with how he works. Did he really send messages to co-star Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Did he consumed solely game he hunted during Last of the Mohicans? And did he insist on being spoon-fed while filming 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. And he is using this to vocalise his frustration at how method acting is viewed. “I am somewhat annoyed nowadays to hear all kinds of people gobbling off and using phrases like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which seems is meant to imply that a person’s behaving like a lunatic in an extreme fashion,” he told a major publication. “People tends to focus on the less important details of the work, and these elements always seem to involve some form of self-punishment or a situation that causes extreme unease or psychological strain. However, in the life for a performer, it has to principally be about the inner transformation.”
An Industry Full of Followers
Frankly, it appears as if the actor has come out from his retreat and found himself shocked by the acting community that has been created mirroring his methods. If you’re widely considered one of the greatest performers to ever work, and your approach involves headbutting a dummy to the point of injury (for Gangs of New York) or enduring two days in solitary confinement without food or water (for In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that other actors will want to fill that vacuum by imitating your hero.
In other words, we now live in a landscape populated by half-cocked Day-Lewis impersonators who strive only to demonstrate the sheer amount of effort they put into a character. On the milder side of this trend we have people like Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to earn an Academy Award with House of Gucci that she dedicated the entire promotion attempting to persuade people that she became functionally Italian over 18 months in preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who decided to deeply embed himself in the character as the Joker (for Suicide Squad) through sending “horrifying” gifts to fellow cast members. These, depending on who you ask, range from dead pigs and rats to intimate objects and used condoms, although Leto denied the most extreme claims. And then, naturally, there is Jim Carrey, who went so deep into Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that they succeeded to get a full-length documentary out of B-roll of him causing difficulties to the utmost for everyone around him.
Contemporary Method Practitioners
The main practitioner of the Method currently would appear to be Jeremy Strong (formerly an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose process while filming Succession was so rigorously detailed that it formed the basis of a critical magazine feature, full of quotes from people who were worried for his behaviour (“It’s the cost to himself that worries me,” said Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by his actions (“I recall [him] making others roll their eyes,” stated an anonymous cast member).
Daniel Day-Lewis claims he ‘did not plan to retire, really’
There are so many other examples. Andrew Garfield went celibate for six months for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in an animal carcass during The Revenant. It’s quite possible that Austin Butler continues to talk like Elvis Presley, three years after that film came out. Each of these instances, to some extent, aims to evoke the dedication in which Day-Lewis takes his work.
An Admirable Yet Challenging Fight
Moreover, while his fightback against method detractors could be commendable, a brief promotional cycle may prove insufficient to alter perceptions, let alone their behaviour. 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. Certainly we could all get behind that.
