It’s been a long while since anyone saw or heard from the acclaimed actor 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. However, in his absence, his legend has only grown.
The Legend of His Acting Method
Primarily, this reputation centers on his favored approach to roles. As someone who famously disappears into the roles he plays – for instance, during Lincoln, reportedly asked the director address him as “Mr President” throughout the shoot – audiences has become more fascinated with how he works. Did he really send texts to Sally Field in character as 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: have we fallen out of love with over-the-top performances?
Currently, Day-Lewis is back to public attention, somewhat reluctantly, for his new film Anemone. He is using this to vocalise his anger at how method acting is perceived. “I’m a little cross nowadays to hear various individuals gobbling off and using phrases like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which I think suggests that a person’s behaving like a lunatic in a drastic way,” he stated to the New York Times. “People often concentrate on superficial details of the work, and those details always seem to involve some sort of self-flagellation or an experience that causes a severe discomfort or mental instability. But of course, in the life for a performer, it has to principally be about the internal work.”
An Industry of Imitators
To be honest, it appears like the actor has come out from his retreat and found himself shocked by the acting community that has been created in his image. When you are widely considered one of the greatest performers to ever work, and your process involves striking a prop to the point of injury (in Gangs of New York) or spending two days in solitary confinement deprived of sustenance (during In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that fellow performers will attempt to emulate that example by imitating their idol.
In other words, we exist in a landscape full of imperfect imitators of Day-Lewis who strive only to show the world the sheer amount 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 spent the entire promotion attempting to persuade people that she became an Italian native for a year and a half as preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who decided to deeply embed himself into the role of the Joker (for Suicide Squad) by sending “disturbing” gifts to fellow cast members. These, depending on who you ask, included deceased animals to intimate objects and personal hygiene products, though the actor refuted the most extreme claims. And then, of course, there is Jim Carrey, who went so deep into Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that filmmakers literally managed in creating a feature-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him causing difficulties as impossible as he could for everyone around him.
The Modern Method Practitioners
The foremost practitioner of the Method currently seems to be Jeremy Strong (formerly Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose approach during Succession was so rigorously detailed that it became the basis of a derisive magazine feature, full of quotes from individuals who were either concerned for his behaviour (“The toll on himself concerns me,” remarked co-star Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by his actions (“I recall [him] making others to react with exasperation,” said an anonymous cast member).
Daniel Day-Lewis claims he ‘never intended to stop acting, truly’
There are numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield went celibate over half a year for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside a dead animal during The Revenant. It’s quite possible that actor Austin Butler still speaks in the style of Elvis, years following that film came out. Each of these instances, in part, aims to evoke the dedication with which Day-Lewis takes his craft.
A Noble But Uphill Fight
And, although his rebuttal to critics of the Method might be noble, a short publicity tour might not be enough to change anyone’s mind, let alone their practices. Maybe if he wants to remind people the true essence of the Method, or to show them its potential results, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to simply begin producing additional movies. Certainly everyone would support that idea.
