It’s been quite some time since anyone saw or heard from Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his announcement in 2017 that he would no longer pursue acting, prior to the release of The Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis quietly faded from view. Yet, in his absence, his reputation expanded further.
The Legend of His Acting Method
Largely, this legend centers on his favored style of working. Being an actor who famously disappears into the roles he plays – for example, while filming Lincoln, he had the director call him “Mr President” for the entire production – the world has grown increasingly obsessed with his process. Is it true he really send messages to co-star Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Did he consumed solely animals he’d killed for Last of the Mohicans? And did he demand receiving food via spoon while filming My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: have we lost interest with actorly excess?
Currently, Day-Lewis is back to public attention, somewhat reluctantly, promoting his latest movie Anemone. And he is taking this chance to express his frustration at how method acting is viewed. “I am somewhat annoyed nowadays when I hear various individuals talking carelessly 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 a major publication. “Everyone often concentrate on the less important details of the work, and those details always seem to involve some sort of self-punishment or a situation that imposes upon oneself a severe discomfort or mental instability. However, in the life of an actor, it has to principally be about the inner transformation.”
A World Full of Followers
To be honest, it appears like the actor has emerged from his retreat only to discover shocked by the world that has developed in his image. When you are regarded as one of the greatest performers in history, and your approach involves headbutting a dummy until you break your nose (in Gangs of New York) or spending 48 hours in isolation without food or water (during In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that fellow performers will want to emulate that example by trying to mimic their idol.
Essentially, we exist in an environment full of imperfect imitators of Day-Lewis who want nothing more than to demonstrate the sheer amount of dedication they invest in a character. At the shallow end of this trend we have people like Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to win an Oscar with House of Gucci that she spent the whole campaign attempting to persuade people that she transformed into an Italian native for a year and a half as preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who decided to deeply embed himself in the character as the Joker (in Suicide Squad) through 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 Leto denied those worst excesses. Then, naturally, there is Jim Carrey, who went so deep 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 main practitioner of the Method currently seems to be Jeremy Strong (once an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose approach while filming Succession was so rigorously detailed that it formed the basis of a critical New Yorker profile, full of quotes from individuals who were worried about his conduct (“It’s the cost on himself concerns me,” said co-star Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by his actions (“I recall him causing everyone else to react with exasperation,” said an unnamed co-star).
The actor says he ‘did not plan to stop acting, truly’
We have numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield went celibate over half a year for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside an animal carcass during The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that actor Austin Butler still speaks in the style of Elvis, years following the movie’s release. Each of these instances, to some extent, is meant to invoke the seriousness with which Day-Lewis approaches his work.
A Noble But Uphill Fight
And, while his fightback against method detractors might be noble, a short publicity tour may prove insufficient to alter perceptions, let alone their practices. Perhaps if he wishes to make audiences recall the true essence of the Method, or to show them what it can achieve, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to just begin producing more films. Surely we could all get behind that.
