It’s been quite some time since the public caught a glimpse of the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his statement in 2017 declaring he would cease to work as an actor, prior to the debut of The Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis quietly faded from view. However, in his absence, his reputation has only grown.
The Legend of His Method
Primarily, this reputation revolves around his favored style of working. As someone who famously immerses himself in his characters – for example, during Lincoln, he had the director call him “Mr. President” for the entire production – the world has grown more fascinated with how he works. Is it true he actually sent messages to co-star Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln? Did he only eat animals he’d killed during Last of the Mohicans? Did he insist on being spoon-fed while filming My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: have we lost interest with actorly excess?
Now, Day-Lewis is back in the limelight, with some hesitation, promoting his latest movie Anemone. And he is taking this chance to vocalise his frustration at how the Method technique is viewed. “I am somewhat annoyed these days 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. “Everyone tends to focus on superficial details of the work, and those details typically include some sort of self-punishment or an experience that causes a severe discomfort or mental instability. But of course, in the career of an actor, it has to principally be about the internal work.”
A World Full of Followers
Frankly, this sounds like Day-Lewis has emerged from seclusion and found himself aghast at the acting community that has developed in his image. If you’re widely considered among the best actors in history, and your process includes headbutting a dummy until you break your nose (for Gangs of New York) or spending two days in isolation deprived of sustenance (during In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that fellow performers will attempt to emulate that example by trying to mimic their idol.
Essentially, we now live in a landscape full of half-cocked Day-Lewis impersonators who want nothing more than to show the world the sheer amount of effort they put into their roles. On the milder side of this trend we have people like Lady Gaga, who was so desperate to earn an Academy Award with House of Gucci that she dedicated the entire promotion trying to convince everyone that she became an Italian native for a year and a half in preparation.
Additionally, there is Jared Leto, who decided to immerse himself into the role of the Joker (in Suicide Squad) through sending “horrifying” presents to fellow cast members. These, according to various accounts, included dead pigs and rats to anal beads and used condoms, though 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 filmmakers literally managed to get a feature-length documentary out of B-roll of him making life as impossible as he could for everyone around him.
Contemporary Followers of the Method
The main Method Guy currently seems to be Jeremy Strong (formerly Day-Lewis’s assistant), whose approach during Succession was so laboriously intensive that it formed the subject of a derisive magazine feature, including statements from individuals who were worried about his conduct (“The toll to himself concerns me,” said Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by it (“I recall him causing everyone else to react with exasperation,” stated an anonymous cast member).
Daniel Day-Lewis says he ‘never intended to retire, truly’
We have numerous additional cases. Andrew Garfield went celibate for six months while preparing for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside a dead animal during The Revenant. There’s a fighting chance that actor Austin Butler still speaks in the style of Elvis, three years after that film came out. Each of these instances, to some extent, aims to evoke the dedication with which Day-Lewis approaches his work.
An Admirable Yet Challenging Battle
And, while his fightback against method detractors might be noble, a short publicity tour might not be enough to alter perceptions, let alone their practices. Perhaps if he wants to remind people what method acting is, or to demonstrate what it can achieve, then Day-Lewis’s best bet is to simply start making additional movies. Certainly everyone would get behind that.
