It’s been a long while since anyone saw or heard from Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his statement in 2017 declaring he would cease to work as an actor, just before the debut of Phantom Thread, the actor quietly faded from view. However, during his hiatus, his legend has only grown.
The Mythos Surrounding His Method
Primarily, this reputation revolves around his preferred approach to roles. Being an actor who famously disappears into his characters – for example, while filming the Lincoln biopic, he had the director call him “Mr President” for the entire production – audiences has become more fascinated with his process. Is it true he really send messages to co-star Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Was it accurate that he only eat game he hunted during The Last of the Mohicans? Did he insist on being spoon-fed for My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: has the public lost interest with over-the-top performances?
Currently, Daniel Day-Lewis is back in the limelight, somewhat reluctantly, promoting his latest movie Anemone. And he is taking this chance to express his anger at how method acting is perceived. “I am somewhat annoyed nowadays to hear all kinds of people gobbling off and using phrases like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which I think suggests that a person’s acting insane in an extreme fashion,” he told a major publication. “People 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 a severe discomfort or psychological strain. However, in the career of an actor, it has to mainly focus on the internal work.”
An Industry of Imitators
Frankly, it appears as if Day-Lewis has emerged from seclusion and found himself shocked by the acting community that has been created in his image. If you’re widely considered one of the greatest actors to ever work, and your approach involves headbutting a dummy until you break your nose (in Gangs of New York) or enduring two days in isolation without food or water (for In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that other actors will want to emulate that example by trying to mimic their idol.
In other words, we now live in an environment populated by half-cocked Day-Lewis impersonators who strive only to show the world the sheer amount of effort they invest in a character. On the milder side of the pool there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was determined to win an Oscar for House of Gucci that she dedicated the whole campaign trying to convince everyone that she transformed into an Italian native over 18 months in preparation.
Additionally, there is Jared Leto, who chose to deeply embed himself into the role as the Joker (for Suicide Squad) through sending “disturbing” gifts to his castmates. These, according to various accounts, range from dead pigs and rats to intimate objects and personal hygiene products, though Leto denied those worst excesses. And then, of course, we have Jim Carrey, who went so deep as Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that filmmakers literally managed to get a feature-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him causing difficulties as impossible as he could for his colleagues.
The Modern Followers of the Method
The foremost Method Guy currently seems to be Jeremy Strong (once an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose approach during Succession was so laboriously intensive that it formed the basis of a derisive New Yorker profile, full of quotes from individuals who were either concerned for his behaviour (“The toll on himself concerns me,” remarked Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by it (“I recall him causing others roll their eyes,” said an anonymous cast member).
Daniel Day-Lewis says he ‘did not plan to stop acting, really’
We have so many other examples. Andrew Garfield went celibate over half a year for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in a dead animal for The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that Austin Butler still speaks like Elvis Presley, years following the movie’s release. Each of these instances, in part, aims to evoke the seriousness with which Day-Lewis takes his work.
An Admirable But Uphill Fight
Moreover, although his rebuttal to critics of the Method could be commendable, a brief promotional cycle may prove insufficient to change anyone’s mind, not to mention their behaviour. Maybe if he wants to make audiences recall what method acting is, or to show them its potential results, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to simply begin producing additional movies. Surely we could all get behind that.
