It has been a long while since the public saw or heard from the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. After he announcement in 2017 that he would cease to pursue acting, just before the release of Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis quietly faded from view. However, during his hiatus, his reputation has only grown.
The Legend Surrounding His Method
Primarily, this legend revolves around his preferred approach to roles. Being an actor known for disappears into his characters – for example, while filming the Lincoln biopic, he had the director call him “Mr President” throughout the shoot – the world has grown increasingly obsessed with his process. Did he really send texts to Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Was it accurate that he consumed solely animals he’d killed for The Last of the Mohicans? And did he insist on being spoon-fed while filming My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: has the public fallen out of love with over-the-top performances?
Now, Day-Lewis is back to public attention, with some hesitation, promoting his latest movie Anemone. And he is using this to vocalise his frustration regarding how method acting is perceived. “I’m a little cross nowadays to hear various individuals gobbling off and saying things like ‘gone full method’, which seems suggests that a person’s acting insane in an extreme fashion,” 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 causes extreme unease or psychological strain. However, in the life of an actor, it has to mainly focus on the internal work.”
An Industry Full of Followers
To be honest, it appears like the actor has come out from his retreat only to discover shocked by the world that has been created mirroring his methods. When you are regarded as one of the greatest performers in history, and your process includes headbutting a dummy until you break your nose (in Gangs of New York) or spending 48 hours in isolation without food or water (for In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that fellow performers will want to emulate that example by imitating your hero.
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 put into a character. On the milder side of this trend there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to earn an Academy Award for House of Gucci that she dedicated the entire promotion trying to convince everyone that she transformed into an Italian native over 18 months in preparation.
Additionally, there is Jared Leto, who decided to immerse himself in the character of the Joker (in Suicide Squad) through sending “horrifying” gifts to fellow cast members. These items, depending on who you ask, range from dead pigs and rats to anal beads and used condoms, though Leto denied those worst excesses. And then, naturally, there is Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully into Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that filmmakers succeeded in creating a full-length documentary out of B-roll of him causing difficulties as impossible as he could for his colleagues.
Contemporary Followers of the Method
The main 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 became the basis of a derisive New Yorker profile, full of quotes from people who were worried for his behaviour (“The toll on himself that worries me,” remarked co-star 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 says he ‘never intended to stop acting, truly’
We have so many other examples. Andrew Garfield went celibate over half a year while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in a dead animal for The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that actor Austin Butler continues to talk in the style of Elvis, three years after the movie’s release. Each of these instances, to some extent, aims to evoke the dedication with which Day-Lewis takes his craft.
An Admirable But Uphill Fight
And, although his rebuttal against method detractors might be noble, a short publicity tour may prove insufficient to alter perceptions, not to mention their practices. Perhaps if he wants to remind people what method acting is, or to demonstrate its potential results, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to simply start making more films. Certainly everyone would get behind that.
