It’s been a long while since the public saw or heard from the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. After he announcement in 2017 that he would cease to work as an actor, just before the release of Phantom Thread, the actor quietly faded from view. However, during his hiatus, his legend has only grown.
The Legend Surrounding His Method
Largely, this reputation centers on his favored approach to roles. Being an actor known for immerses himself in the roles he plays – for example, during Lincoln, he had Steven Spielberg call him “Mr. President” throughout the shoot – audiences has become more fascinated with his process. Is it true he actually sent messages to co-star Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Did he only eat animals he’d killed for The Last of the Mohicans? Did he insist on being spoon-fed for My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: has the public fallen out of love with actorly excess?
Currently, Day-Lewis has returned in the limelight, somewhat reluctantly, promoting his latest movie Anemone. And he is taking this chance to vocalise his anger regarding how method acting is viewed. “I’m a little cross nowadays to hear all kinds of people talking carelessly and using phrases like ‘fully embraced the Method’, which I think suggests that someone is behaving like a lunatic in a drastic way,” he stated to the New York Times. “People often concentrate on the less important details of the work, and those details typically include some sort of self-flagellation or an experience that imposes upon oneself extreme unease or mental instability. However, in the life of an actor, it has to principally be about the inner transformation.”
A World Full of Followers
To be honest, this sounds as if Day-Lewis has come out from seclusion only to discover aghast at the acting community that has been created mirroring his methods. When you are regarded as among the best actors in history, and your approach includes striking a prop to the point of injury (for Gangs of New York) or enduring two days in isolation without food or water (during In the Name of the Father), then it stands to reason that fellow performers will want to fill that vacuum by imitating your hero.
In other words, we now live in a landscape populated by half-cocked imitators of Day-Lewis who want nothing more than to demonstrate the sheer amount of dedication they invest in their roles. At the shallow end of this trend there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to win an Oscar 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 chose to immerse himself in the character of the Joker (for Suicide Squad) by sending “horrifying” gifts to fellow cast members. These items, according to various accounts, included deceased animals to intimate objects and used condoms, although Leto denied those worst excesses. Then, naturally, there is Jim Carrey, who went so deep as Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that filmmakers literally managed in creating a full-length documentary out of B-roll of him making life as impossible as he could for everyone around him.
The Modern Method Practitioners
The foremost Method Guy at the moment seems to be Jeremy Strong (once Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose approach during Succession was so laboriously intensive that it formed the subject of a critical New Yorker profile, including statements from people who were worried for his behaviour (“The toll to himself concerns me,” remarked co-star Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by it (“I recall him causing others roll their eyes,” stated an anonymous cast member).
Daniel Day-Lewis says he ‘did not plan to stop acting, really’
There are so many other examples. Andrew Garfield went celibate for six months while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside an animal carcass during The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that Austin Butler still speaks like Elvis Presley, years following the movie’s release. Each of these instances, in part, is meant to invoke the seriousness with which Day-Lewis takes his work.
A Noble Yet Challenging Fight
Moreover, while his fightback against method detractors might be noble, a brief promotional cycle might not be enough to change anyone’s mind, let alone their behaviour. Perhaps if he wishes to remind people what method acting is, or to show them what it can achieve, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to simply begin producing additional movies. Certainly we could all support that idea.
