It has been a long while since the public caught a glimpse of Daniel Day-Lewis. After he statement in 2017 that he would no longer pursue acting, prior to the debut of The Phantom Thread, the actor quietly faded from view. Yet, in his absence, his reputation expanded further.
The Mythos of His Acting Method
Largely, this reputation revolves around his favored style of working. Being an actor who famously disappears into the roles he plays – for example, during Lincoln, reportedly asked the director call him “Mr. President” throughout the shoot – the world has grown increasingly obsessed with how he works. Did he really send messages to co-star Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Did he consumed solely animals he’d killed for Last of the Mohicans? Did he demand being spoon-fed for My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: has the public fallen out of love with over-the-top performances?
Now, Daniel Day-Lewis has returned in the limelight, with some hesitation, for his new film Anemone. And he is using this to vocalise his frustration at how method acting is viewed. “I’m a little cross nowadays when I hear various individuals gobbling off and saying things like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which seems is meant to imply that someone is behaving like a lunatic in an extreme fashion,” he stated to a major publication. “Everyone often concentrate on superficial details of the work, and these elements typically include some sort of self-flagellation or a situation that imposes upon oneself extreme unease or psychological strain. But of course, in the career for a performer, it has to mainly focus on the inner transformation.”
An Industry Full of Followers
To be honest, it appears as if Day-Lewis has emerged from seclusion and found himself aghast at the world that has been created mirroring his methods. When you are widely considered one of the greatest performers to ever work, and your approach involves headbutting a dummy to the point of injury (in Gangs of New York) or enduring two days in solitary confinement deprived of sustenance (for In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that fellow performers will want to emulate that example by trying to mimic your hero.
In other words, we now live in an environment populated by half-cocked imitators of Day-Lewis who strive only to demonstrate the extensive degree of dedication they invest in a character. At the shallow end of the pool there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was determined to earn an Academy Award for House of Gucci that she dedicated the entire promotion attempting to persuade people that she became an Italian native over 18 months in preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who decided to deeply embed himself into the role as the Joker (in Suicide Squad) by sending “horrifying” gifts to fellow cast members. These items, according to various accounts, included dead pigs and rats to intimate objects and used condoms, though the actor refuted those worst excesses. Then, naturally, there is Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully as Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that filmmakers succeeded to get a feature-length documentary out of B-roll of him making life to the utmost for his colleagues.
The Modern Method Practitioners
The foremost practitioner of the Method currently would appear 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, full of quotes from people who were worried for his behaviour (“It’s the cost to himself that worries me,” said co-star Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by it (“I recall him causing others roll their eyes,” stated an anonymous cast member).
The actor claims he ‘never intended to retire, really’
We have so many other examples. Andrew Garfield went celibate for six months for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in a dead animal for The Revenant. It’s quite possible that actor Austin Butler still speaks like Elvis Presley, years following that film came out. All of this, to some extent, is meant to invoke the dedication with which Day-Lewis takes his work.
An Admirable But Uphill Fight
Moreover, while his fightback to critics of the Method could be commendable, a brief promotional cycle may prove insufficient to change anyone’s mind, let alone their behaviour. Perhaps if he wants to remind people the true essence of the Method, or to demonstrate its potential results, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to just start making more films. Certainly we could all get behind that.
