It has been quite some time since the public caught a glimpse of the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. After he announcement in 2017 declaring he would cease to pursue acting, just before the release of Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis withdrew from the spotlight. Yet, during his hiatus, his reputation has only grown.
The Mythos Surrounding His Method
Primarily, 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 address him as “Mr. President” throughout the shoot – audiences has become more fascinated with how he works. Did he really send texts to Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Was it accurate that he only eat animals he’d killed during Last of the Mohicans? Did he demand being spoon-fed while filming My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: has the public fallen out of love with actorly excess?
Now, Daniel Day-Lewis has returned to public attention, somewhat reluctantly, for his new film Anemone. 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 ‘gone full method’, which seems is meant to imply that someone is acting insane in an extreme fashion,” he stated to a major publication. “Everyone tends to focus on superficial details of the work, and those details always seem to involve some sort of self-punishment or a situation that causes extreme unease or psychological strain. However, in the life for a performer, it has to principally be about the internal work.”
An Industry of Imitators
To be honest, this sounds as if Day-Lewis has emerged from seclusion only to discover shocked by the acting community that has been created in his image. If you’re regarded as one of the greatest performers to ever work, and your process includes striking a prop to the point of injury (for Gangs of New York) or spending two days in solitary confinement deprived of sustenance (for In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that other actors will want to emulate that example by imitating your hero.
In other words, we exist in an environment populated by imperfect Day-Lewis impersonators who strive only to show the world the extensive degree of effort they invest in a character. At the shallow end of the pool we have people like Lady Gaga, who was determined to earn an Academy Award with House of Gucci that she spent the whole campaign trying to convince everyone that she transformed into an Italian native over 18 months as preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who chose to deeply embed himself in the character as the Joker (in Suicide Squad) through sending “disturbing” gifts to fellow cast members. These, according to various accounts, included dead pigs and rats to intimate objects and used condoms, though Leto denied those worst excesses. Then, of course, we have Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully into Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that they succeeded in creating a full-length documentary out of B-roll of him causing difficulties as impossible as he could for everyone around him.
Contemporary Followers of the Method
The foremost practitioner of the Method at the moment would appear to be Jeremy Strong (formerly an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose process while filming Succession was so rigorously detailed that it became the subject of a critical New Yorker profile, including statements from individuals who were worried about his conduct (“The toll on himself that worries me,” remarked co-star Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by his actions (“I remember [him] making everyone else roll their eyes,” said an anonymous cast member).
The actor says he ‘did not plan to stop acting, really’
We have so many other examples. Andrew Garfield abstained from sex for six months for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside 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. Each of these instances, in part, aims to evoke the dedication in which Day-Lewis approaches his craft.
A Noble Yet Challenging Fight
Moreover, while his fightback against method detractors might be noble, a brief promotional cycle may prove insufficient to change anyone’s mind, not to mention their behaviour. Maybe if he wishes to make audiences recall what method acting is, or to demonstrate its potential results, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to simply begin producing more films. Surely we could all get behind that.
