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 work as an actor, just before the release of The Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis withdrew from the spotlight. Yet, in his absence, his legend has only grown.
The Mythos Surrounding His Acting Method
Primarily, this legend revolves around his favored style of working. As someone who famously disappears into the roles he plays – for instance, while filming the Lincoln biopic, reportedly asked the director call him “Mr. President” throughout the shoot – the world has grown increasingly obsessed with how he works. Is it true he really send texts to Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Was it accurate that he only eat animals he’d killed during Last of the Mohicans? Did he insist on receiving food via spoon for My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: have we lost interest with over-the-top performances?
Now, Day-Lewis has returned in the limelight, somewhat reluctantly, promoting his latest movie Anemone. He is taking this chance to vocalise his anger regarding how the Method technique is perceived. “I’m a little cross these days to hear all kinds of people gobbling off and using phrases like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which seems suggests that a person’s behaving like a lunatic in a drastic way,” he stated to the New York Times. “Everyone tends to focus on the less important aspects of acting, and those details always seem to involve some form of self-punishment or an experience that imposes upon oneself a severe discomfort or psychological strain. However, in the life for a performer, it must mainly focus on the internal work.”
A World Full of Followers
Frankly, it appears like Day-Lewis has emerged from his retreat and found himself aghast at the acting community that has been created in his image. When you are regarded as one of the greatest performers in history, and your process involves headbutting a dummy until you break your nose (in Gangs of New York) or spending 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 your hero.
In other words, we exist in an environment populated by imperfect imitators of Day-Lewis who want nothing more than to demonstrate the sheer amount of effort they invest in their roles. At the shallow end of this trend we have people like Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to win an Oscar for House of Gucci that she spent the entire promotion trying to convince everyone that she became functionally Italian over 18 months in preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who chose to immerse himself in the character of the Joker (in Suicide Squad) through sending “horrifying” presents to his castmates. These, depending on who you ask, range from dead pigs and rats to anal beads and personal hygiene products, although the actor refuted those worst excesses. Then, of course, we have Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully into Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that they succeeded to get a feature-length documentary from behind-the-scenes footage of him making life as impossible as he could for everyone around him.
Contemporary Followers of the Method
The foremost Method Guy at the moment seems to be Jeremy Strong (once Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose process while filming Succession was so laboriously intensive that it formed the subject of a derisive New Yorker profile, including statements from people who were worried for his behaviour (“The toll to himself concerns me,” remarked Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by his actions (“I recall [him] making others to react with exasperation,” stated an anonymous cast member).
The actor claims he ‘did not plan to stop acting, truly’
There are so many other examples. Andrew Garfield went celibate for six months for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside an animal carcass for The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that actor Austin Butler still speaks like Elvis Presley, years following that film came out. Each of these instances, to some extent, aims to evoke the seriousness in which Day-Lewis takes his craft.
An Admirable Yet Challenging Fight
Moreover, although his rebuttal to critics of the Method could be commendable, a short publicity tour may prove insufficient to change anyone’s mind, not to mention their practices. Maybe if he wants to make audiences recall what method acting is, or to show them what it can achieve, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to simply begin producing additional movies. Surely everyone would get behind that.
