It’s been a long while since anyone saw or heard from Daniel Day-Lewis. After he announcement in 2017 declaring he would no longer pursue acting, just before the release of Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis quietly faded from view. However, in his absence, his reputation expanded further.
The Legend of His Acting Method
Primarily, this legend centers on his preferred approach to roles. Being an actor who famously immerses himself in the roles he plays – for instance, while filming Lincoln, reportedly asked the director address him as “Mr. President” for the entire production – the world has grown more fascinated with his process. Did he really send texts to Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Did he only eat game he hunted during Last of the Mohicans? Did he insist on receiving food via spoon for My Left Foot?
Madness in their method: have we fallen out of love with actorly excess?
Now, Daniel Day-Lewis is back to public attention, somewhat reluctantly, promoting his latest movie Anemone. And he is using this to vocalise his frustration regarding how method acting is viewed. “I’m a little cross nowadays to hear various individuals 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 a drastic way,” he told the New York Times. “People often concentrate on the less important aspects of acting, and those details typically include some sort of self-flagellation or an experience that causes extreme unease or psychological strain. However, in the career of an actor, it must principally be about the internal work.”
A World Full of Followers
To be honest, this sounds like the actor has emerged from his retreat and found himself shocked by the world that has been created mirroring his methods. If you’re widely considered among the best actors in history, and your process includes striking a prop to the point of injury (in Gangs of New York) or spending two days in isolation deprived of sustenance (during In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that other actors will attempt to fill that vacuum by imitating their idol.
Essentially, we exist in an environment populated by imperfect imitators of Day-Lewis who strive only to show the world the sheer amount of effort they invest in a character. At the shallow end of the pool we have people like Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to earn an Academy Award with House of Gucci that she spent the whole campaign trying to convince everyone that she became functionally Italian for a year and a half in preparation.
Then we have Jared Leto, who decided to deeply embed himself in the character as the Joker (for Suicide Squad) by sending “disturbing” presents to fellow cast members. These items, depending on who you ask, range from deceased animals to anal beads and used condoms, though the actor refuted the most extreme claims. And then, naturally, there is Jim Carrey, who immersed himself so fully into Andy Kaufman during Man on the Moon that filmmakers literally managed to get a feature-length documentary out of B-roll of him causing difficulties as impossible as he could for everyone around him.
The Modern Followers of the Method
The foremost practitioner of the Method currently seems to be Jeremy Strong (formerly Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose process while filming Succession was so laboriously intensive that it formed the basis of a derisive magazine feature, including statements from individuals who were either concerned for his behaviour (“It’s the cost to himself that worries me,” said co-star Brian Cox) or annoyed beyond all measure by it (“I recall him causing others to react with exasperation,” said an anonymous cast member).
The actor says he ‘did not plan to stop acting, really’
We have so many other examples. Andrew Garfield went celibate for six months while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside a dead animal for The Revenant. It’s quite possible that Austin Butler still speaks in the style of Elvis, years following the movie’s release. Each of these instances, in part, aims to evoke the seriousness in which Day-Lewis takes his craft.
An Admirable But Uphill Fight
Moreover, although his rebuttal to critics of the Method might be noble, a brief promotional cycle may prove insufficient to alter perceptions, let alone their practices. Maybe if he wishes to make audiences recall the true essence of the Method, or to show them its potential results, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to just begin producing additional movies. Certainly we could all support that idea.
