It has been quite some time since the public caught a glimpse of Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his announcement in 2017 declaring he would no longer pursue acting, just before the release of Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis quietly faded from view. Yet, in his absence, his reputation expanded further.
The Legend Surrounding His Method
Primarily, this legend revolves around his preferred approach to roles. As someone who famously disappears into his characters – for example, while filming the Lincoln biopic, he had the director address him as “Mr President” throughout the shoot – audiences has grown increasingly obsessed with his process. Is it true he really send messages to co-star Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Was it accurate that he consumed solely animals he’d killed during The Last of the Mohicans? And did he demand receiving food via spoon while filming My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: have we fallen out of love with actorly excess?
Now, Day-Lewis has returned to public attention, with some hesitation, promoting his latest movie Anemone. He is using this to express his anger at how method acting is perceived. “I’m a little cross nowadays when I hear all kinds of people gobbling off and using phrases like ‘gone full method’, which seems is meant to imply that a person’s acting insane in a drastic way,” he stated to a major publication. “People often concentrate on the less important aspects of acting, and those details typically include some form of self-flagellation or a situation that causes extreme unease or psychological strain. However, in the life of an actor, it has to mainly focus on the inner transformation.”
An Industry Full of Followers
To be honest, it appears like Day-Lewis has come out from his retreat and found himself 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 approach involves striking a prop to the point of injury (for Gangs of New York) or enduring two days in isolation deprived of sustenance (during In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that other actors will attempt to fill that vacuum by imitating your hero.
In other words, we now live in an environment full of half-cocked imitators of Day-Lewis who want nothing more than to show the world the sheer amount of effort they put into their roles. At the shallow end of the pool we have people like Lady Gaga, who was determined to earn an Academy Award with House of Gucci that she dedicated the whole campaign attempting to persuade people that she became functionally Italian over 18 months as preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who decided to immerse himself into the role as the Joker (in Suicide Squad) by sending “horrifying” presents to his castmates. These items, according to various accounts, included deceased animals to intimate objects and personal hygiene products, although Leto denied those worst excesses. Then, of course, we have Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully as Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that they literally managed in creating a feature-length documentary out of B-roll of him causing difficulties as impossible as he could for his colleagues.
Contemporary Method Practitioners
The foremost practitioner of the Method at the moment would appear to be Jeremy Strong (formerly an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose approach while filming Succession was so rigorously detailed that it became the subject of a critical New Yorker profile, full of quotes from people who were worried for his behaviour (“It’s the cost on himself concerns me,” remarked Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by his actions (“I recall [him] making everyone else to react with exasperation,” said an anonymous cast member).
Daniel Day-Lewis claims he ‘never intended to retire, truly’
We have so many other examples. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex over half a year for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in an animal carcass for The Revenant. It’s quite possible that actor Austin Butler still speaks like Elvis Presley, years following the movie’s release. Each of these instances, to some extent, aims to evoke the seriousness in which Day-Lewis takes his work.
An Admirable But Uphill Fight
Moreover, although his rebuttal 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 remind people what method acting is, or to show them what it can achieve, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to just start making more films. Certainly everyone would get behind that.
