It has been a long while since anyone caught a glimpse of the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. After he statement in 2017 that he would cease to pursue acting, prior to the debut of The Phantom Thread, the actor quietly faded from view. Yet, in his absence, his legend expanded further.
The Legend Surrounding His Acting Method
Primarily, this legend revolves around his favored approach to roles. As someone known for immerses himself in his characters – for instance, during the Lincoln biopic, reportedly asked Steven Spielberg call him “Mr President” for the entire production – the world has grown increasingly obsessed with how he works. Is it true he actually sent messages to co-star Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Did he only eat animals he’d killed during Last of the Mohicans? And did he insist on receiving food via spoon for My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: has the public lost interest with actorly excess?
Now, Day-Lewis is back to public attention, with some hesitation, for his new film Anemone. And he is using this to express his anger regarding how method acting is viewed. “I’m a little cross nowadays when I hear various individuals talking carelessly and using phrases like ‘gone full method’, which seems is meant to imply that a person’s behaving like a lunatic in an extreme fashion,” he told the New York Times. “People tends to focus on superficial aspects of acting, and those details always seem to involve some sort of self-punishment or a situation that imposes upon oneself extreme unease or mental instability. However, in the career for a performer, it must mainly focus on the inner transformation.”
A World Full of Followers
Frankly, it appears like Day-Lewis has come out from seclusion and found himself aghast at the acting community that has been created mirroring his methods. 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 48 hours in isolation without food or water (during In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that fellow performers will attempt to fill that vacuum by imitating your hero.
In other words, we now live in a landscape populated by imperfect imitators of Day-Lewis who strive only to show the world the sheer amount of effort they put into their roles. On the milder side of this trend there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to earn an Academy Award for House of Gucci that she spent the entire promotion trying to convince everyone that she became functionally Italian for a year and a half as preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who chose to immerse himself in the character of the Joker (for Suicide Squad) by sending “horrifying” gifts to his castmates. These, according to various accounts, included deceased animals to anal beads and personal hygiene products, although Leto denied those worst excesses. And then, of course, we have Jim Carrey, who went so deep into Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that filmmakers succeeded to get a feature-length documentary out of B-roll of him making life as impossible as he could for his colleagues.
Contemporary Followers of the Method
The main practitioner of the Method at the moment would appear to be Jeremy Strong (formerly Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose process during Succession was so rigorously detailed that it formed the basis of a derisive New Yorker profile, including statements from people who were either concerned for his behaviour (“The toll to himself concerns me,” said co-star Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by his actions (“I recall him causing others roll their eyes,” said an anonymous cast member).
Daniel Day-Lewis claims he ‘never intended to stop acting, truly’
There are numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex over half a year while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside an animal carcass during The Revenant. It’s quite possible that actor Austin Butler continues to talk in the style of Elvis, three years after that film came out. All of this, in part, is meant to invoke the dedication in which Day-Lewis approaches his work.
An Admirable Yet Challenging Battle
Moreover, while his fightback to critics of the Method could be commendable, a short publicity tour might not be enough to alter perceptions, not to mention their practices. Maybe if he wants to remind people what method acting is, or to demonstrate its potential results, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to simply start making additional movies. Surely everyone would get behind that.
