It has been a long while since anyone saw or heard from the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his statement in 2017 declaring he would no longer pursue acting, just before the debut of The Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis quietly faded from view. Yet, in his absence, his reputation has only grown.
The Legend of His Method
Largely, this reputation revolves around his preferred approach to roles. As someone known for disappears into the roles he plays – for instance, while filming the Lincoln biopic, he had Steven Spielberg address him as “Mr President” for the entire production – the world has become more fascinated with how he works. Is it true he actually sent messages to co-star Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Did he only eat game he hunted during Last of the Mohicans? And did he insist on receiving food via spoon while filming My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: has the public lost interest with over-the-top performances?
Currently, Daniel Day-Lewis is back in the limelight, with some hesitation, for his new film Anemone. He is taking this chance to vocalise his frustration regarding how the Method technique is viewed. “I am somewhat annoyed nowadays when I hear all kinds of people talking carelessly and using phrases like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which seems suggests that a person’s acting insane in a drastic way,” he stated to the New York Times. “Everyone often concentrate on the less important aspects of acting, and these elements typically include some form of self-punishment or an experience that imposes upon oneself extreme unease or psychological strain. However, in the career of an actor, it must mainly focus on the internal work.”
An Industry Full of Followers
Frankly, this sounds as if the actor has emerged from seclusion and found himself aghast at the world that has developed in his image. When you are widely considered one of the greatest actors in history, and your process involves striking a prop until you break your nose (for Gangs of New York) or enduring 48 hours in isolation deprived of sustenance (during In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that other actors will want to fill that vacuum by imitating your hero.
In other words, we now live in a landscape full of half-cocked Day-Lewis impersonators who strive only to demonstrate the extensive degree of dedication they put into a character. On the milder side of this trend we have people like Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to earn an Academy Award for House of Gucci that she dedicated the whole campaign attempting to persuade people that she became functionally Italian for a year and a half in preparation.
Additionally, there is Jared Leto, who decided to immerse himself into the role of the Joker (for Suicide Squad) by sending “horrifying” presents to his castmates. These items, depending on who you ask, included deceased animals to intimate objects and used condoms, although Leto denied those worst excesses. Then, of course, there is Jim Carrey, who went so deep as Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that they succeeded to get a full-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 an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose process while filming Succession was so laboriously intensive that it became the basis of a derisive New Yorker profile, full of quotes from people who were worried about his conduct (“The toll on himself concerns me,” said co-star Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by his actions (“I remember [him] making others roll their eyes,” stated an unnamed co-star).
Daniel Day-Lewis says he ‘never intended to stop acting, truly’
We have numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield went celibate for six months while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio slept in an animal carcass during The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that actor Austin Butler still speaks like Elvis Presley, years following that film came out. All of this, in part, aims to evoke the dedication in which Day-Lewis takes his work.
A Noble Yet Challenging Battle
And, although his rebuttal to critics of the Method might be noble, a brief promotional cycle may prove insufficient to change anyone’s mind, let alone their practices. Maybe if he wants to remind people the true essence of the Method, or to demonstrate what it can achieve, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to simply begin producing more films. Certainly everyone would support that idea.
