It has been a long while since the public saw or heard from Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his statement in 2017 declaring he would no longer pursue acting, just before the release of Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis withdrew from the spotlight. Yet, in his absence, his legend expanded further.
The Legend Surrounding His Acting Method
Largely, this reputation centers on his preferred style of working. As someone known for immerses himself in the roles he plays – for example, during Lincoln, he had Steven Spielberg call him “Mr President” for the entire production – audiences has become more fascinated with his process. Did he really send messages to co-star Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Did he only eat animals he’d killed during Last of the Mohicans? And did he insist on receiving food via spoon while filming My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: has the public lost interest with actorly excess?
Now, Day-Lewis is back in the limelight, somewhat reluctantly, promoting his latest movie Anemone. And he is taking this chance to vocalise his anger regarding how the Method technique is viewed. “I’m a little cross these days to hear all kinds of people gobbling off and saying things like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which I think is meant to imply that a person’s behaving like a lunatic in an extreme fashion,” he told the New York Times. “Everyone often concentrate on the less important aspects of acting, and those details always seem to involve some sort of self-punishment or an experience that imposes upon oneself a severe discomfort or mental instability. But of course, in the life for a performer, it has to mainly focus on the inner transformation.”
An Industry Full of Followers
To be honest, this sounds like the actor has emerged from seclusion only to discover aghast at the world that has developed mirroring his methods. If you’re widely considered one of the greatest actors to ever work, and your approach involves striking a prop until you break your nose (for Gangs of New York) or spending 48 hours in solitary confinement without food or water (for In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that fellow performers will attempt to fill that vacuum by imitating your hero.
Essentially, we now live in a landscape populated by half-cocked imitators of Day-Lewis who strive only to show the world the sheer amount of effort they put into a character. At the shallow end of this trend there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was determined to earn an Academy Award with House of Gucci that she dedicated the whole campaign trying to convince everyone that she transformed into an Italian native for a year and a half in preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who chose to immerse himself in the character of the Joker (for Suicide Squad) through sending “disturbing” presents to his castmates. These, according to various accounts, range from deceased animals to intimate objects and personal hygiene products, although Leto denied those worst excesses. Then, of course, there is Jim Carrey, who went so deep as Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that they succeeded to get a feature-length documentary out of B-roll of him making life as impossible as he could for everyone around him.
The Modern Followers of the Method
The main practitioner of the Method currently seems to be Jeremy Strong (formerly an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose process during Succession was so rigorously detailed that it formed the basis of a derisive magazine feature, including statements from people who were worried for his behaviour (“The toll on himself that worries me,” said Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by his actions (“I remember [him] making everyone else roll their eyes,” stated an anonymous cast member).
The actor claims he ‘did not plan to stop acting, truly’
There are numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield went celibate for six months for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in an animal carcass for The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that Austin Butler continues to talk like Elvis Presley, three years after the movie’s release. All of this, in part, is meant to invoke the seriousness with which Day-Lewis approaches his work.
A Noble But Uphill Battle
And, although his rebuttal to critics of the Method could be commendable, a short publicity tour may prove insufficient to alter perceptions, not to mention their behaviour. Perhaps if he wants to remind people what method acting is, or to demonstrate what it can achieve, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to just start making additional movies. Certainly everyone would support that idea.
