It has been quite some time since the public caught a glimpse of the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. After he announcement in 2017 that he would no longer work as an actor, just before the debut of The Phantom Thread, the actor quietly faded from view. Yet, in his absence, his legend expanded further.
The Legend of His Method
Largely, this legend revolves around his favored approach to roles. As someone who famously disappears into the roles he plays – for example, while filming the Lincoln biopic, he had Steven Spielberg call him “Mr. President” for the entire production – audiences has become increasingly obsessed with his process. Did he really send messages to co-star Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Was it accurate that he only eat animals he’d killed for The Last of the Mohicans? Did he demand being spoon-fed for My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: has the public lost interest with actorly excess?
Now, Daniel Day-Lewis is back in the limelight, with some hesitation, for his new film Anemone. He is taking this chance to vocalise his anger at how method acting is viewed. “I am somewhat annoyed nowadays to hear various individuals gobbling off and saying things like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which seems is meant to imply that someone is behaving like a lunatic in a drastic way,” he told the New York Times. “People often concentrate on the less important aspects of acting, and those details always seem to involve some sort of self-flagellation or a situation that causes extreme unease or psychological strain. But of course, in the career for a performer, it has to principally be about the inner transformation.”
An Industry Full of Followers
Frankly, it appears like the actor has emerged from his retreat and found himself aghast at the acting community that has developed in his image. When you are widely considered one of the greatest performers to ever work, and your process includes striking a prop until you break your nose (in Gangs of New York) or spending two days in isolation deprived of sustenance (during In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that fellow performers will attempt to fill that vacuum by imitating your hero.
In other words, we exist 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. At the shallow end of this trend there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was determined to earn an Academy Award with House of Gucci that she dedicated the entire promotion trying to convince everyone that she became an Italian native for a year and a half in preparation.
Additionally, there is Jared Leto, who decided to immerse himself in the character as the Joker (for Suicide Squad) through sending “horrifying” presents to fellow cast members. These, according to various accounts, range from dead pigs and rats to anal beads and used condoms, although the actor refuted the most extreme claims. And then, naturally, we have Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully into Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that they succeeded to get a feature-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him making life as impossible as he could for everyone around him.
Contemporary Method Practitioners
The foremost Method Guy at the moment seems to be Jeremy Strong (formerly an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose approach while filming Succession was so rigorously detailed that it formed the basis of a derisive 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 extremely irritated by it (“I recall him causing everyone else to react with exasperation,” said an anonymous cast member).
Daniel Day-Lewis claims he ‘never intended to stop acting, really’
We have so many other examples. Andrew Garfield went celibate for six months for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in an animal carcass for The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that Austin Butler continues to talk in the style of Elvis, years following that film came out. Each of these instances, in part, is meant to invoke the dedication with which Day-Lewis approaches his work.
A Noble Yet Challenging Battle
And, while his fightback to critics of the Method could be commendable, a brief promotional cycle might not be enough to change anyone’s mind, not to mention their practices. Maybe if he wants to make audiences recall what method acting is, or to show them its potential results, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to simply start making more films. Surely we could all support that idea.
