It’s been quite some time since the public caught a glimpse of Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his announcement in 2017 that he would no longer pursue acting, prior to the debut of Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis withdrew from the spotlight. Yet, during his hiatus, his reputation expanded further.
The Mythos of His Acting Method
Primarily, this legend revolves around his favored approach to roles. As someone known for immerses himself in the roles he plays – for instance, while filming the Lincoln biopic, he had the director address him as “Mr President” throughout the shoot – the world has become increasingly obsessed with how he works. Is it true he really send messages to co-star Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Was it accurate that he only eat animals he’d killed for The Last of the Mohicans? And did he demand receiving food via spoon while filming My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: has the public lost interest with actorly excess?
Now, Daniel Day-Lewis is back in the limelight, with some hesitation, for his new film Anemone. And he is using this to vocalise his anger at how method acting is perceived. “I am somewhat annoyed these days when I hear all kinds of people talking carelessly and using phrases like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which I think is meant to imply that a person’s acting insane in a drastic way,” he stated to the New York Times. “People tends to focus on superficial details of the work, and these elements always seem to involve some sort of self-punishment or an experience that imposes upon oneself extreme unease or mental instability. However, in the career for a performer, it must principally be about the inner transformation.”
A World of Imitators
Frankly, it appears as if the actor has emerged from his retreat and found himself aghast at the world 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 to the point of injury (for Gangs of New York) or spending 48 hours in isolation deprived of sustenance (during In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that fellow performers will want to emulate that example by trying to mimic your hero.
In other words, we now live in an environment full of half-cocked imitators of Day-Lewis who strive only to show the world the extensive degree of dedication they put into their roles. At the shallow end of the pool there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to win an Oscar for House of Gucci that she dedicated the whole campaign trying to convince everyone that she became an Italian native for a year and a half as preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who chose to immerse himself into the role of the Joker (in Suicide Squad) through sending “disturbing” gifts to his castmates. These, according to various accounts, range from dead pigs and rats to anal beads and used condoms, although Leto denied those worst excesses. And then, of course, we have Jim Carrey, who went so deep as Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that they succeeded to get a feature-length documentary out of B-roll of him causing difficulties as impossible as he could for his colleagues.
The Modern Followers of the Method
The main practitioner of the Method currently would appear to be Jeremy Strong (once Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose approach during Succession was so laboriously intensive that it became the basis of a critical magazine feature, full of quotes from people who were worried about his conduct (“It’s the cost to himself concerns me,” said co-star Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by his actions (“I remember [him] making others to react with exasperation,” said an anonymous cast member).
The actor says he ‘never intended to stop acting, really’
There are numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex over half a year for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in an animal carcass for The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that Austin Butler still speaks like Elvis Presley, years following that film came out. Each of these instances, to some extent, is meant to invoke the seriousness in which Day-Lewis approaches his work.
An Admirable But Uphill Fight
And, while his fightback against method detractors might be noble, a short publicity tour may prove insufficient to alter perceptions, not to mention their behaviour. Maybe if he wants to make audiences recall what method acting is, or to demonstrate what it can achieve, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to simply start making additional movies. Certainly we could all get behind that.
