It’s been a long while since the public saw or heard from the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. After he announcement in 2017 declaring he would no longer work as an actor, just before the release of The Phantom Thread, the actor quietly faded from view. Yet, during his hiatus, his legend has only grown.
The Legend Surrounding His Acting Method
Largely, this legend centers on his favored approach to roles. As someone who famously disappears into the roles he plays – for instance, during the Lincoln biopic, he had Steven Spielberg address him as “Mr President” for the entire production – the world has become increasingly obsessed with how he works. Is it true he really send messages to co-star Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Was it accurate that he only eat game he hunted during Last of the Mohicans? And did he demand being spoon-fed while filming My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: has the public lost interest with over-the-top performances?
Currently, Day-Lewis is back to public attention, with some hesitation, promoting his latest movie Anemone. And he is using this to express his anger regarding how the Method technique is viewed. “I’m a little cross these days to hear all kinds of people talking carelessly and saying things like ‘gone full method’, which seems suggests that a person’s acting insane in an extreme fashion,” he told 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-flagellation or an experience that imposes upon oneself a severe discomfort or mental instability. But of course, in the career for a performer, it must mainly focus on the inner transformation.”
An Industry of Imitators
To be honest, it appears like Day-Lewis has emerged from seclusion only to discover shocked by the acting community that has been created in his image. When you are widely considered among the best 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 without food or water (for In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that fellow performers will attempt to emulate that example by imitating their idol.
In other words, we now live in a landscape 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 the pool there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to win an Oscar with House of Gucci that she dedicated the whole campaign attempting to persuade people that she became functionally Italian over 18 months in preparation.
Additionally, there is Jared Leto, who chose to deeply embed himself into the role of the Joker (for Suicide Squad) by sending “horrifying” presents to fellow cast members. These items, depending on who you ask, included dead pigs and rats to anal beads and used condoms, though the actor refuted the most extreme claims. Then, naturally, there is Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully into Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that filmmakers literally managed to get a feature-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him making life as impossible as he could for his colleagues.
Contemporary Method Practitioners
The foremost Method Guy at the moment seems to be Jeremy Strong (once Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose approach while filming Succession was so rigorously detailed that it formed the basis of a critical magazine feature, full of quotes from individuals who were either concerned for his behaviour (“The toll on himself concerns me,” said co-star Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by his actions (“I remember [him] making everyone else to react with exasperation,” said an anonymous cast member).
Daniel Day-Lewis says he ‘did not plan to retire, truly’
There are so many other examples. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex over half a year for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside a dead animal for The Revenant. It’s quite possible that Austin Butler continues to talk in the style of Elvis, years following that film came out. All of this, to some extent, is meant to invoke the seriousness in which Day-Lewis takes his work.
A Noble But Uphill Fight
And, although his rebuttal against method detractors might be noble, a short publicity tour may prove insufficient to change anyone’s mind, not to mention their practices. Perhaps if he wants to remind people the true essence of the Method, or to show them what it can achieve, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to simply start making more films. Certainly everyone would support that idea.
